


Save Two

by Iggytheperson



Series: Remember to Save [2]
Category: Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02
Genre: M/M, Reset Verse, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-13 08:28:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 51,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13566714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iggytheperson/pseuds/Iggytheperson
Summary: Motomiya is an enigma of a person and Ken is getting annoyed with it.Oh well, there's not much that can be done about the current situation, so he supposes he'll just have to live with it. For now.





	1. The Digimon Kaiser has joined the party

Ken is confused about many, many things. Every thought that passes through his head seems to conflict with all the other ones. He feels completely overwhelmed. 

Maybe he should start with something little. Like that weird little thing that Motomiya made in the sand back there. He’d mumbled something to himself, and then just stood up and walked away from the pile without saying anything more about it. Had it been a mantra or something? No, it’d been too short. So what on earth had it been? 

He doesn’t actually want to ask Motomiya upfront. The boy in question was yet another of the many enigmas that were confusing Ken to no end. He actually has...quite a few questions regarding Motomiya. The other boy is acting weird, in ways unlike anything that Ken had ever observed from the him. It wasn’t just the resigned way he’d acted when he almost got eaten alive by that...creation of his. It was as though the boy had taken on an entirely different attitude. Not his emotions, he seemed just as stupidly happy as ever. But that was the weird thing about it. His entire team had just been...wiped out. He should’ve been devastated. He should’ve had some sort of reaction at all. But he...didn’t even seem to care. At all. 

Something about that makes a chill run down his spine and he’s not sure why.

He himself has been acting different, though he can’t figure out why at all. It’s little things, but there’s enough of those little things for it to matter and for it to bother him. Little things, like how Wormmon calling him by his name wasn’t annoying anymore. 

Like how for some reason, he didn’t feel all that bothered by the destruction of his base and all his hard work going to waste. By all means it should have, he’d dedicated everything to his empire. But the knowledge that it was all gone didn’t seem to irk him at all.

Wormmon said something about him being “back to normal” earlier, hadn’t he? Was this what Wormmon thought was normal? That didn’t make any sense. He can’t remember having felt like this before, much less for a period of time long enough that it could be considered normal in comparison to his usual conqueror mindset. 

...He’d ask Wormmon about it later. He was getting off track. Why didn’t Motomiya seem at all bothered by the fact that all his friends were...dead? He didn’t seem to have any objections to walking around with the person who...was responsible for their deaths. Even Ken was upset about it, and it was all his fault in the first place! So why was Motomiya acting normal, like this was something that happened every other day!? 

Maybe it did for him? No, no that was just stupid. Motomiya was just a normal kid, like him. There’s no way his life could be that messed up. 

...Could it? Maybe this was all just some crazy act. Maybe the real Motomiya was the one that was about to be eaten alive and looked as though that didn’t bother him at all. Maybe Motomiya was just this crazy, messed up person who wasn’t even bothered by the fact that he’d just watched his friends die and that he was now walking around with the guy who’d murdered them. No, that couldn’t be it, that was insane. It was just insane. There’s no way that Motomiya could be a person like that...right? Motomiya is a good person. That’s why he’s a chosen to begin with. He isn’t awful like Ken.

He just can’t be. There’s just no way.

So why then? Why is he still smiling and walking along, looking as though he doesn’t have a care in the world?

‘Looking’...Maybe that’s it. Maybe Motomiya is actually just pretending to be happy, for whatever reason. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense. That’s probably it. Motomiya is just pretending to be happy. Yeah.

Why though? Is he in too much shock to react to what had happened? Or maybe...he’s pretending that he’s happy because he doesn’t want to cry in front of Ken? That could be it, Motomiya was stubborn enough to do something like that. But it couldn’t just be because he didn’t want to show weakness to the enemy or anything…he would just be acting angry towards Ken if that was the case. But Motomiya hadn’t been the slightest bit aggressive towards Ken since Chimeramon had disappeared. He’d actually been really friendly for some reason. That’s another weird thing about Motomiya’s behavior.

He’s being nice to Ken. That doesn’t make any sense at all. He’d just caused the slaughter Motomiya’s whole team. Even if it was unintentional, the point still stood that Motomiya should’ve wanted to shove him off a cliff, not offer to stay with him in the digital world until they could find a place where Ken could be safe by himself. He isn’t sure what Motomiya was thinking in that regard, either. They’d been walking all day, but even though the sun was setting, Motomiya didn’t seem to have any problem with the fact that he might be stuck in the digital world overnight. He’d pulled out his d-terminal a while ago, apparently sending his parents an excuse that would work for any amount of absence. Ken can’t help but wonder what on earth that excuse might’ve been.

At any rate, they’d eventually made it out of the desert and now they’re looking for a place set up camp for the night. Motomiya is still being confusingly talkative and cheery while he points out different places that could make good resting spots. Ken can’t bring himself to say anything. It seems as though his tongue simply doesn’t want to make words whenever he tries to say something. And so he only nods when he’s asked whether or not the tree Motomiya found would be good to sleep under.

With nothing else to do, he pushes his tattered cape off and lays down against the tree. He tries to close his eyes, only to open them a second later when he feels something against his side.

Oh.

Wormmon is curling up to him.

For some reason, he really likes that, which is confusing because if that’d happened yesterday he’s pretty sure he would’ve hit the bug for it. That thought hurts, for some reason. He decides not to think about it anymore. 

Ken sleeps. He sees Takaishi screaming as his partner disintegrates into data. He sees the other boy running at him with a chunk of rubble in hand and murderous rage in his eyes. Ken sees the ground beneath Takaishi crumble, and Ken sees him fall to his death. He sees Inoue jump in front of the Yagami girl to protect her. He watches as the Yagami girl stays collapsed on the floor, eyes wide and glazed over, like she’s in some other world. He watches her get crushed underfoot by his rampaging creation. He watches the youngest one’s digimon crying, in front of a large boulder with a gigantic blood splatter coming up from under it. He watches as Motomiya’s digimon stops moving, impaled on Chimairamon’s claws. He watches Motomiya get picked up, looking terrified for a brief second before all the light drains out of his eyes. He already looks dead when Chimairamon throws the boy into its mouth.

He wakes up screaming.

Wormmon is saying something but he doesn’t really hear it, he’s spinning around trying to figure out what’s going on and where he is and why there’s bile in his throat. His eyes fall on Motomiya a few feet away from him and he feels a giant wave of relief hit him. It only lasts for a moment before his thoughts sort themselves out and he realizes that no, it wasn’t just a nightmare. All those people had definitely died just like that. The boy he’d once called his worthy adversary had almost died looking like a lifeless ragdoll. 

Speaking of which.

It’s then that he notices that Motomiya is tossing about. 

Upon closer examination, Motomiya appears to be screaming. Appears, because although he looks like he’s screaming himself hoarse, Ken can’t hear any sound coming out of him. Not even the thrashing about seems to be making a sound. It’s probably the most uncanny thing that Ken has ever seen.

Ken finds himself trying to shake the other boy awake. It’s hard, he can barely hold onto Motomiya as he starts thrashing about more and more. Ken’s attempts don’t seem to make a difference at all. What’s happening? Why won’t anything work?

“What’s that on his chest, Ken?” Wormmon asks, and Ken looks down to see what the bug is referring to. A piece of paper that looks sort of like a talisman. It has something written on it, but it’s too dark for Ken to make anything out. Not knowing what else to do, Ken rips the paper off. 

Immediately, Ken is met with with ear-splitting screaming. His hands instinctively fly up to defend against the god awful noise, but the effort is pointless, the sound is far too loud for him to block out to any degree. It’s a few seconds before he registers that the sound is coming from Motomiya. He tries again to shake the other boy awake, but his efforts still don’t seem to do anything. He hears a vague sound from behind him and before he has any time to try and process it the screaming sound is suddenly much more muffled and quiet. 

Oh. Wormmon gagged Motomiya. While the gag makes it much easier on Ken’s ears, it doesn’t seem to do anything on Motomiya’s end. He doesn’t seem to notice it. He just keeps screaming his head off and thrashing about and now that Ken was able to focus he could see that Motomiya was crying. So he supposes that this means the “pretending to be happy” theory had been right on the money. He isn’t sure what to do about this situation though. No matter what he does, Motomiya doesn’t seem to respond at all. He screams at the other boy to wake up, but it doesn’t seem to reach his ears at all. And then Wormmon proposes his own idea.

“Why don’t you try hugging him? I mean, it might not wake him up, but at least it might calm him down a bit…” He says. Ken looks incredulously at him, only to regret it upon seeing the digimon cringe back in fear.

Hastily, Ken lays down next to Motomiya and tries to pull the other boy into a hug. It’s hard at first, with all the thrashing, but after he gets his arms around the other boy, he’s startlingly quick to calm down. Even more startlingly, Motomiya then wraps his arm around Ken and starts nuzzling into the boy’s chest. Ken is both flustered and terrified. 

But, he doesn’t really have the option of letting go anymore, so he just closes his eyes and tries to ignore the feeling of the other boy snuggling into his chest as Wormmon curls up next to them. What was he getting himself into?

He wakes up the next morning to the feeling of something moving against him.

He’s very confused when he opens his eyes to see Motomiya staring at him, very close to his face. Oh right. Motomiya had been cuddling him. Well this is awkward.

Realizing that he still has an arm wrapped around the other boy, Ken quickly lets go and sits up embarrassedly. Motomiya stares at him for a few more seconds before getting up next to him.

“So how did you end up next to me?” He asks, seeming a lot less flustered than Ken about the uncomfortable position he’d woken up in. 

“You were, uh, having a nightmare and I couldn’t wake you up and so, um, Wormmon told me I should try hugging you to calm you down and well, it worked, so...” Ken stumbles. Motomiya doesn’t seem to pay much attention after the “nightmare” part, as he suddenly takes to looking around himself in confusion. His search stops when he reaches behind Ken and grabs the paper talisman that’d been stuck to his chest the night before.

It has the word “silence” written on it. 

But before Ken has a chance to say something about it, Motomiya stuffs it into his bag and starts talking about going to go find them breakfast. He’s on his feet and walking away before Ken can even get a word in. 

Wormmon stirs next to him a few seconds later. He looks in confusion at the empty space next to Ken.

“He left to go get breakfast...or something.” Ken says. Wormmon nods, but it still looks like he has something he wants to ask. He says nothing though, so the two of them just sit awkwardly together. Ken feels something he wants to say burning at the tip of his tongue. He doesn’t get to say it, since Wormmon finally decides to ask his question. 

“Are you ok? After your nightmare, I mean.” He asks quietly. Oh, so that’s what he was worried about. Ken had almost forgotten about the nightmare, what with the dramatic episode with Motomiya. He supposes it’s a question worth thinking about, but thinking about the other children hurts a lot for some reason, so he doesn’t particularly want to. He gives Wormmon a nod anyways. The bug clearly doesn’t believe it. Wormmon doesn’t get a chance to say anything about it though, because Motomiya reenters the scene. 

He sets down a giant armful of various fruits and sits down with a flop. Without so much as a word he grabs one of the fruits and starts scarfing it down. Hesitantly, Ken and Wormmon follow in suit. It isn’t necessarily bad, but Ken doesn’t really have that much of an appetite at the moment. Wormmon seems to notice that he isn’t eating much and starts looking at him in worry. Ken starts forcing himself to eat as much as Motomiya is, and he’s not sure why he’s suddenly so quick to appease every ridiculous little worry that Wormmon has. It seems silly, really. He knows that the little bug is just going to worry either way, and it’s not like there’s any real danger in having a small breakfast. But something in the back of his mind keeps saying that he’s already made the poor little thing way too anxious for his own good. He doesn’t know where the weird voice comes from, he honestly doesn’t really like it. It seems to shut up if he goes along with its silly little requests though, so he does that as much as possible and tries not to think about it. It has the bonus effect of stopping Wormmon from mothering him, so that’s a plus. 

“So, I guess the first thing we gotta do now is go find a tv.” Motomiya says suddenly. 

“What? Why!?” Ken yells. He doesn’t like the idea of going anywhere near something that could send him back to earth. Not one bit. He knows that Motomiya probably doesn’t intend to send him back home, but the idea is still nerve wracking. 

“Because we need to ask Koushiro how to find the Village of Beginnings or whatever it’s called, duh! And I gotta tell them about...y’know…” Motomiya trails off, smile shrinking a bit. Oh right...Yagami and Takaishi had...older brothers. Ken feels his breath catch in his throat. He tries to shake it off, but Motomiya and Wormmon have already noticed his distress. Wormmon starts cuddling his leg before he has a chance to say that he’s fine. Motomiya doesn’t do anything of the sort, and Ken’s not sure whether or not he’s grateful for that. Once he trusts his voice again, he lightly nudges Wormmon off of him and answers Motomiya.

“Why do we need to go to the Village of Beginnings?” His voice is still shaky, and it’s annoying because he’s not a baby dammit and he shouldn’t be allowing himself to act like this in front of Motomiya!

“Because we need to go find Veemon’s egg! I mean, don’t get me wrong, Wormmon is great and all, but I don’t think we have a chance in hell of stopping Chimairamon with just him.” Motomiya replies nonchalantly, and once again Ken is taken aback by how uncaringly the other boy seems when addressing horrifying events. He’s also not sure when it was decided that they were going to be trying to stop Chimairamon. He finds that he doesn’t really have any objections to the idea though, so he doesn’t comment on it. 

When did he turn into such a pushover? He was just letting these people walk all over him and control him, and he wasn’t even arguing! What the hell? 

About half of his brain agrees with this sentiment, but the other half, the half that just showed up yesterday and started making everything confusing, argues against it. He hates this. Why can’t his brain just sort itself out already and stop making everything so confusing and complicated?

He doesn’t end up saying anything though, just sulks in his own head as the three of them set off to go find a television.


	2. A Learning Experience

The walk was a quiet one. Motomiya was apparently no longer inclined to chatter, walking at the front of the group with his eyes peeled in hopes of spotting a television. Wormmon scuttled along next to Ken, barely managing to keep up with the pace set by the much larger boys. Ken feels kind of bad, making the little guy practically jog to keep up with them. 

...Wait. He could just pick Wormmon up. Without thinking about what the repercussions of this, Ken promptly leaned down and scooped Wormmon off of the ground. He felt a flinch run through the bug’s body. And felt him start shaking like a leaf. Oh. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

In an attempt to soothe the shaking digimon, Ken reached a hand up and petted Wormmon on the head. This was yet another mistake on his part. Wormmon flinched hard again and started whimpering. Oh god.

“H-hey, it’s ok...um, I’m not going to hurt you, I was just uh-” Ken fumbles, trying uselessly to calm down his increasingly distressed partner. Motomiya finally seems to notice the commotion going on behind him, turning back to look at them with a confused look on his face. Realization quickly sets in though, and Motomiya soon bends down and starts his own attempt at comforting Wormmon. After a few seconds, Wormmon breaks out of his stunned state and starts mumbling. 

He starts apologizing. Apologizing, over and over until it sounds like one long string of incomprehensible rambling. Ken’s gut feels like it’s been tied in a knot.

It goes on like that for a long time, with Wormmon mumbling in a stupor while Ken just stands there uselessly, any attempts at comfort dying in his throat as Motomiya continues to be the only capable one in helping the situation.

Eventually though, Wormmon does seem to become more aware of the situation. But figuring out what’s happening doesn’t make the apologies stop at all. If anything it makes it worse, because then he starts apologizing directly to them. Saying he’s sorry for causing them trouble like this, sorry for holding them up. 

“Motomiya. It’d be better if you carried Wormmon.” Ken says, not bothering to wait and find out if either of them agree with the statement before shoving Wormmon forward into Motomiya’s arms. He turns and starts speed walking in the same direction they’d been headed before. 

Motomiya scoots up beside him a few seconds later, cradling Wormmon in his arms. Ken is only looking out of the corner of his eye, but Wormmon almost looks...disappointed, for some reason. No, that didn’t make sense. Wormmon was scared of Ken touching him, right? He must be misreading it. No matter, he just won’t touch Wormmon anymore. 

It was for the best.

The walk went back to being quiet, although now it was far more awkward. After a long while, Ken started to realize that it was actually quite strange, how quiet it was. Not even the sound of rustling leaves or any other telltale signs of digimon were to be heard. Which made the staticky sound of a voice in the trees beside them sound all the louder. Well then, there was their television.

The trio rushed over to the television set, and the older Yagami screaming his face off inside it. 

“Daisuke! What’s going on? Why did all the digivice signals stop going out!? Where is Hikari!?” He screams, and Motomiya visibly flinches at the mention of the girl. The boy on the other side of the screen clearly notices this, eyes going wide as terror falls over his face.

“Where is she, Daisuke!?” He screeches, as though he hasn’t already realized the truth. Daisuke still doesn’t answer, drawing his arms tighter around Wormmon. 

“Answer me!” Yagami screams, though it comes out as more of a sob as tears start running down his face. For whatever reason, Daisuke seems to be completely incapable of keeping his strong front up, so Ken figures it’s up to him to step in for the time being.

“She’s dead. As are the others. I’m sorry for your loss.” He says, trying and failing to keep his voice stable. The near-hysterical boy doesn’t take the announcement very well.

“Y-you’re lying! Shut the hell up! I’m not listening to you, you sick monster! Daisuke! Tell me the truth! Answer me already! DAISUKE-”

“Stop yelling at him.” Ken says, any softness in his voice disappearing completely as he feels a strange, ice cold rage wash over him.

“It’s not his fault your brain is incapable of processing the truth. Don’t pin your shortcomings on him.” He continues, his voice going hard and completely devoid of the compassion that it’d held a few moments earlier. That weird inner voice of his is, for some reason, dead silent as the older boy starts going ballistic. He starts screaming angry fragments of broken thoughts as Ishida and Izumi suddenly rush into frame. Ishida attempts to physically restrain their wild eyed leader as Izumi makes an attempt at soothing the older boy. 

“Taichi, calm down! What’s wrong!?” Izumi asks, clearly frightened by Yagami’s animalistic behavior. 

“He said they were dead!” The boy screams in response as his voice starts to rasp from the strain of his meltdown. It’s then that the other two boys finally take notice of him and Motomiya. 

Izumi’s eyes seem to scan over them. He looks as though he’s trying to remain composed, but he doesn’t really succeed as his eyes start going wide. Ishida seems to have stop breathing.

“...I said nothing but the truth.” He says, confidence withering away again as apprehension settles in his stomach. This was going from bad to worse every second, and he wasn’t really helping. He watches the blood drain from Izumi’s face as Ishida starts mumbling the same rebuttals that Yagami had previously been screaming. 

“No...no it can’t be true. No...You’re lying. You have to be lying. Daisuke! Please tell me he’s lying!” Ishida cries. Motomiya, who had yet to say a single word to any of his upperclassmen, still remained deathly silent. This was going in circles. 

“Motomiya...they aren’t going to listen to me. I’m sorry, but you have to tell them.” Ken says quietly, putting a hand on the other boy’s shoulder. Slowly, painfully slowly, Daisuke uncurls himself, easing his death grip on Wormmon and sitting up straight. 

“They’re dead. I’m sorry.” He whispers. An almost inaudible denial fall from Yagami’s lips before he breaks into sobbing. Ishida is deathly still for a few seconds, before he collapses to his knees and tears start to pour down his face. Izumi seems to be trying to figure out which one to try and comfort. He also seems to be trying to be holding back tears of his own.

“...Koushiro. We need to get to the Village of Beginnings to get Veemon back.” Daisuke says, that damned resigned look on his face again. 

Izumi seems to be in shock for a few seconds before he snaps out of it and gives a small nod. 

“Yeah...yeah ok. Come out here and I’ll-”

“No!” Ken finds himself yelling without even thinking about it. Everyone looks up at him in shock at the sudden exclamation. There’s a few seconds of silence as Ken realizes what he just said. He stutters, failing to form a proper sentence that could explain why he’d sounded so scared. Or maybe they hadn’t noticed that. He hopes they didn’t. Ken isn’t sure if he’s relieved or not when Daisuke steps in for him.

“Uh...Koushiro, is there a...way for us to get to the village without having to come through the gate?” He asks. If there’s one thing Ken is thankful for in all of this, it’s the fact that Daisuke doesn’t pity him at all. Or if he does, he doesn’t let it show. He’s not sure what he’d think if Daisuke started giving him those same sad looks that Wormmon did. Like Wormmon was doing right now.

“...Yes. If you keep heading in the same direction you were before, you should reach the coast sometime tomorrow. I’ll contact Whamon and ask him if he’ll give you a ride over to File Island. If he says no though, there’ll be no other options, ok?” Izumi says, clearly trying to keep his eyes glued on Daisuke. Daisuke quickly nods. 

“Is your d-terminal still working? I’ll send you a message if he says no…” Izumi explains, fighting to keep his voice solid as the older boys behind him start sniffling again.

“Yeah, it still works. Thanks, Koushiro. We’ll get going right away then.” Daisuke says, and without another word he stands up and starts walking again. Ken hastily follows, not wanting to be left alone with the three older boys for even a second.

It’s quiet again. Ken had sort of wanted to say something before, but it seems pointless now. Daisuke’s happy mask was already vacuum-sealed on again. Ken doesn’t think there’s much of a point in trying to speak earnestly to him when the other boy seems determined to keep acting. If Ken was being honest with himself, he’d say that it was because he found it rather creepy. And kind of frightening. He vaguely wondered if there might be a way to get the other boy to stop doing it. He couldn’t think of an answer, though.

He continued to think to himself for a while, upholding the silent march until night fell.

Once again, Daisuke picked out a tree to be their shelter for the night. As the other two sat down, Ken realized that now he really _did_ have to say something to the other boy. And he had to get the message across now.

He wasn’t sure how to say it, but the other boy was already laying down and he didn’t have much time left and so he found himself doing something rather than saying something. Oh well, he supposed that would work fine. Actions spoke louder than words or something like that, right? 

Daisuke looks confused as he watches Ken lay down next to him.

“...We can...just do this until we can find ourselves some sleeping meds or something, ok Motomiya?” Ken says quietly, and Daisuke doesn’t get a chance to ask what ‘this’ is before the other boy pulls him into a hug. Daisuke doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t need to for Ken to see that he’s confused. As well as horribly tense. The muscles under Ken’s hands feel so wound up that Ken is almost afraid that the other boy might hurt himself.

A few uncomfortable minutes pass and Ken almost contemplates letting go before he feels the other boy’s muscles soften a little bit out of their painfully tight state. He looks down at Daisuke’s face and sees nothing hiding for once. He’s almost glad, besides the fact the the other boy looks like he’s about to start crying. Ken isn’t sure what to think when he actually does. 

He feels nothing but confusion as tears start to run down Daisuke’s face. He’s never really seen the other boy act like this. Or anyone, really. He’s not quite sure what to do. What did normal people usually do in situations like this, anyways?

Almost instinctively, he ends up pulling the other boy closer and he starts softly rubbing circles on his back. He starts crying harder. Ken isn’t even that mad about his shirt getting wet but for some reason his chest feels incredibly tight to the point that it hurts. He’s not sure why. It takes him a minute to even notice when Daisuke finally stops crying. 

He looks down again and sees that the other boy is out of commission. Despite the waterworks, Daisuke’s sleeping face looks rather peaceful.

...Wait, when did he start thinking of the other boy as ‘Daisuke’?...He tries to remember, but he isn’t quite sure. He also finds that he doesn’t really care that much. It sounds better than ‘Motomiya’ anyways. Though he’s not sure if he wants to call the other boy ‘Daisuke’ out loud just yet. Oh well, he’ll figure it out later. It’s not that big of a deal. He’s too exhausted to bother mulling it over anyways. 

He’s so exhausted, that he doesn’t even notice Daisuke wrapping his arms around him as he drifts off to sleep.


	3. Of Discussions and Unwanted Feelings

The next morning started off rather uneventfully, so much so that Ken expected the rest of the day would continue as such. 

And so it surprised him when Daisuke suddenly asked him a question as they started walking again. The question caught him off guard even more.

“So, why do you hate Earth so much?” The other boy asked simply, as though he was asking what kind of cereal Ken liked. It was so out of the blue that it took a few seconds for Ken to even register the question. When it did click, he almost felt compelled to snap at the boy, ask him what the hell he thought he was playing at. But Daisuke didn’t seem...ill intended. Though the honesty of Daisuke’s behaviour was questionable at best, Ken held back from yelling at the other boy. What was he even supposed to say to something like that though? He didn’t particularly feel like soul-searching over the world he’d run away from when all the feelings he’d gotten in this one were still all tangled up. Maybe if he just...dodged the question.

“I don’t hate Earth, just the people in it.” He answered, hoping that the other boy wouldn’t pry him anymore. Though it turned out that fate wasn’t in his favor today.

“Even your parents?”

“Especially my parents.” Ken says immediately, not thinking about the fact that he’d just invited even more prying questions.

“Really? Why? I thought they looked really nice and stuff. Your mom was crying on tv all the time after you disappeared, y’know.” Daisuke tells him. Ken almost feels a bit of guilt at his words before it’s quickly replaced by an anger and hatred that he didn’t really want to have to feel so early in the morning. 

“She was probably just acting. She doesn’t care about me. Neither of them ever have.” He says curtly. He doesn’t want to be thinking about this anymore. The whole reason he’d run away from home in the first place was to get away from them, he shouldn’t even have to think about them anymore!

...Something about that seemed off. The whole reason he’d run away? No, he’d come here so he could focus on his conquest, right? So why had he...thought that just now? Ugh, this was all so confusing. Why did stupid Daisuke have to bring all this annoying stuff anyways? 

“I’m guessing from that look on your face that you probably don’t want to talk about it, huh?” Daisuke says, chuckling almost nervously. 

“No, not at all.” He responds honestly. He really, really doesn’t want to be talking about this at all, and even less so due to Daisuke’s acting. He doesn’t particularly feel like opening his heart up to a brick wall. 

“‘Cause you don’t know me, right? You don’t wanna talk to me because you don’t know if you can trust me.” Daisuke says, giving him a weird smile. Ken isn’t sure how to feel about the fact that he can apparently be read like an open book. It’s a bit of a nerve wracking thought, really. He finds himself nodding anyways.

“Ok then, ask me some questions!” Daisuke says, as though the statement has anything to do with the one that came before it.

“...What?” Ken asks, not sure what else to say. 

“Well, we’re a team now, right? So we sorta have to trust each other now. Or else, y’know, we’re probably gonna die. _Sooooo,_ ask me some questions! Ask whatever you want, and I’ll be totally honest with you, no matter what, ok?” He explains, sounding far too happy for a person who’d just brought up the possibility of death. But he does have a point, if a chilling one, so Ken nods and tries to come up with a question. He’s not really sure what he’s supposed to ask though. He knows what he _wants_ to ask about. But he doesn’t, for some reason. Instead, he stays on the same train of thought he’d just been wanting to get away from.

“What’re your parents like?” He finds himself asking. The other boy seems to mull it over for a moment, staring up at the canopy of trees above them with his eyebrows scrunched together. 

“They’re...nice, I guess. Though sometimes I feel like they’re trying to hide stuff from me or something. Especially my mom. It’s super weird. Other than that, I guess they’re not that bad.” He answers. Ken feels a little bit jealous, which is weird because he’s not sure why he would care. He shakes off the feeling and tries to think of more questions.

In a short period of time, he learns lots of little unimportant facts about Daisuke. His favorite food is ramen, he has an awesome older sister, he got his first pair of goggles from a friend when he was little, he got his current pair from Taichi. Ken doesn’t say that he already knew that last one. Daisuke had a close friend when he was seven, but Daisuke doesn’t hear from her anymore and now he doesn’t have any close friends outside the other chosen children. Scratch that last one, he doesn’t have any close friends. And it’s upon this incredibly dark statement that Ken decides to start asking questions that he actually wants to know the answers to. 

“Why aren’t you mad at me for getting your friends killed?” He asks. 

“...Well it’s not like you meant to, right?” Daisuke responds quietly, though he still tries to make it sound like he’s happy.

“No, I didn’t. But I never told you that. So how could you have possibly known that!?” Ken says, sounding a bit more choked up than he’d like to.

“Well I sorta doubted you would’ve almost gotten yourself killed trying to save me if you wanted me to die, y’know?” The other boy responds casually. This takes a few seconds for Ken to process. When he does, he feels rather stupid. Oh. That was kind of obvious, huh?

He’d been so wrapped up in trying to forget the horror of that situation that he’d sort of forgotten what had happened in the first place. He’d jumped in after Daisuke to save him. They’d almost died at least six times after that. He’s honestly not sure how they’d made it. It was kind of scary to think about, really. How close he came to being eaten alive by his own invention. Because of that, and because he’s not sure what else to say, he asks another question. A worse question, actually. 

“Why are you smiling?” He asks. It’s too simple compared to what he really means, and probably too forward, but he’s not sure how else he can phrase it. It gets his point across though, so he supposes it doesn’t really matter.

Daisuke goes quiet.

He’s not ignoring Ken. At least, Ken doesn’t think he is. Daisuke looks like he’s thinking. 

After a long, long silence, Ken gets an answer.

“I’m not sure.” The other boy tells him. It’s far cry from what he’d wanted or expected, but Ken can clearly see that Daisuke is being honest. 

Now he’s not sure what to say. It wouldn’t really be fair of him to keep prying the other boy when he himself had asked to be left alone. But it would be really awkward if he let the conversation drop here, though. So another question, then. What to ask, though? Hmm…

“What are you going to say to Veemon when you see him again?” He asks. He’s not really sure why he cares, but for some reason he just sort of wants to know the answer. It appears that the other boy hadn’t put any thought into his upcoming reunion yet, because he looks as though he’s not sure what to say. He stares upward for a while again.

“...I guess I’ll say something like ‘You tried your best, and I’m really proud of you.’ Veemon is the kind of guy that’ll beat himself up over failing, even if he knows he didn’t stand a chance. So I should probably say that right away so he doesn’t blame himself too much.” He answers. His voice sounds strange. It’s not the usual ‘trying too hard to be happy’ voice. It still sounds happy, it’s just...different. Ken can’t quite put his finger on it. But he actually sort of likes it. It sounds more...natural, he supposes. Yeah, that’s a good word for it. 

Ken doesn’t notice that he’s smiling until Wormmon points it out. The digimon sounds overjoyed. To be honest, Ken had almost forgotten that Wormmon was with them. Not intentionally, his thoughts had just been elsewhere and Wormmon had been out of his line of sight. Now that he did remember about the bug, he felt a little bad. They were making Wormmon keep up with them again. He feels even worse when Wormmon flinches back from him. Crap, what did he do to...oh. He’d stopped smiling. 

“Hey, hey, don’t freak out, I’m not mad at you I just…” Ken says lamely. Ugh, he was pathetic.

“...How about you let Motomiya carry you again? It can’t be easy for you to try and keep up with us like that…” He continues. Once again, Wormmon looks weirdly disappointed. But the little digimon says nothing and scuttles over to Daisuke. The boy scoops him up, and the walk goes back to being quiet. 

And it’s then that they reach the coast. They walk out of the trees onto a long, sprawling beach and Ken suddenly has an incredibly uncomfortable feeling in his gut and he has no idea why. He doesn’t get any time to contemplate it, either. Their ride has already arrived.

“Heey! Are you three the guys that need a ride to File Island? I mean, that one definitely _looks_ like an evil dictator, so you probably are, but it’s doesn’t hurt to check!” the giant whale digimon shouts at them. Ken isn’t sure why he flinches. But if anyone notices, they don’t comment on it.

“Yup! That would be us!” Daisuke shouts, waving without a care in the world.

And so the trio struggles up onto Whamon’s back. Whamon explains that they’ll probably arrive early tomorrow morning and that if anyone throws up on him, he’ll chuck the group into the ocean. Ken’s not actually sure if he’s joking or not. The group is quiet for a while as they set off. Ken would’ve been content just watching the waves or looking at the continent as it drifts further and further away, but once again, Daisuke feels that conversation is necessary. 

“Let’s start up question time again, free for all this time!” He suggests cheerfully.

“Oh? What’s that?” Whamon asks loudly. Ken is mildly disturbed by how he seems to talk without opening his mouth.

“We all ask each other questions! And the person answering has to tell the truth no matter what.” Daisuke explains, seeming very excited at the prospect of getting Whamon involved. 

“Sounds good to me! ‘Kay, I have a question for the little conqueror, then. What’s your name, kiddo? Because there’s no way in hell I’m calling you the Kaiser of anybody.” The giant digimon asks, and it’s then that Ken decides that he really, _really_ doesn’t like Whamon.

“...It’s Ken. My name is Ken.” He answers slowly, not because of Whamon, but just because the words feel incredibly weird on his tongue. Probably because he’d been shouting denials of that statement for a long time now. He didn’t think he still wanted to be called the Kaiser though. It was just...weird, saying his name out loud. He’d hated it so much before. Ken Ichijouji was the media darling, the boy genius. The perfect son. It made him want to scream. 

But now he wasn’t that Ken Ichijouji anymore, was he? He was just Ken Ichijouji, the boy who disappeared. The boy who was now trying to save a world that he’d previously been trying to enslave. What was his reasoning behind that again? He doesn’t really remember. He’s not sure if there ever was a reason. 

He’d been so...angry. So fed up with everything. He can’t remember anything besides that cold rage he’d felt. He remembers everything he did, of course he does, how could he ever forget that? But the reasons are all fuzzy now. He’s not sure why. There had to have been a reason for all of that, right?...So what was it?

“Helloooo, earth to Ken! It’s your turn to ask a question!” Daisuke says, waving a hand in front of his face. Ken had been so spaced out that he’d apparently not noticed the other boy talking to him. He really needed to stop doing that.

“Oh, um…ok. Uh...Whamon, if you dislike me so much, then why are you agreeing to help me get around?” He asks, too dazed to think about whether or not it’s appropriate to ask what’s on his mind.

“...Well, unless all of the chosen suddenly turned evil, chances are, you’re working for the good guys now. I personally don’t really care whether you’re sorry or if you’ve changed or anything like that, but with the whole digital world in the mess that is, we don’t have the luxury to be picky. So if you’re going to help now, then as far as I’m concerned that’s a win for the good guys.” Whamon answers. Ken doesn’t find it comforting at all, but he supposes that it’s the best answer he could expect.

“All right then, it’s Whamon’s turn again!” Daisuke announces happily. He was completely content to just watch this unfold, apparently. 

“Well then. Wormmon, you’re his partner, right? So you’ve been with him this whole time and you never tried to stop him?” Whamon asks, and if Ken had a spiral on him he’s pretty sure he would’ve ringed the damned creature right then.

“...I’m sorry.” Wormmon whimpers, curling up into a ball. 

“That’s not an answer.” Whamon says, clearly not caring about how distressed and upset it was making Ken’s partner.

“Shut up.” Ken growls, trying to bore a hole into Whamon’s back with his glare alone. 

“And why should I do that?” The digimon responds. Ken wants to kill it. 

“Because if you don’t I’m going to-”

“Alright! I think question time is over now!” Daisuke interrupts. Ken’s not sure what causes him to actually listen to the other boy. He flops onto his back with a huff and glares at the sky. 

By the time the sun starts to set a few hours later, Ken no longer feels angry. He doesn’t particularly feel like apologizing to their annoying, insensitive boat though. Daisuke offers him some fruit that he’d apparently shoved into his bag that morning. He quickly agrees, stomach growling as he realizes that they’d never eaten lunch. The food doesn’t taste good, but his stomach doesn’t care. Wormmon is staring at him very worriedly, for some reason. He doesn’t ask. 

It’s then that he suddenly notices the sunset, and how it’s really beautiful. He’s not sure what it is about it that’s making it so beautiful, though. Maybe it’s because they’re on the ocean or something, but whatever the reason is, the sunset looks especially spectacular to him. That’s odd. He’s been out on the ocean overnight in his base before. How come he’d never noticed something so pretty before now? 

“Wow...it’s so pretty…” Daisuke whispers, and Ken almost jumps out of his skin. When had Daisuke sat down next to him? He really needed to pay more attention. Daisuke didn’t seem to notice his shock, completely absorbed into the sunset himself. Ken can’t get his attention focused back on the sunset, though. Daisuke looks strange. The same kind of strange as before, when they’d been talking about Veemon. Maybe it was just the lighting, but the other boy looked...warmer. That was the only way to describe it. 

The sun disappears over the horizon, and Ken manages to pry his eyes away before the other boy notices him staring. 

The ocean air rapidly turns to ice as the last bits of sunlight fade away. Daisuke already looks incredibly cold in his shorts. Suddenly, an idea clicks into Ken’s head. Taking off his cape, he detaches the shoulderpads and set them aside. He now had a large sheet of fabric, with nothing else on it but the small buckle. Perfect.

“Hey. This’ll work as a blanket.” He says to the other boy. Daisuke’s eyes light up. 

“Great! Wait, uh...where can we position Wormmon so that he doesn’t have to be cold?” Daisuke asks. Ken’s not actually sure if Wormmon is able to get cold, but the little digimon looks overjoyed at the prospect of joining them. Ken puts a hand on his chin as he tries to figure out what kind of configuration would work best. 

“Hmm...maybe if you faced away from me, and then Wormmon could curl into the space next to you…?” He suggests. Wormmon suddenly looks much less excited and he’s not sure why. 

At any rate they attempt to recreate Ken’s weird description to some amount of success. Daisuke ends up curled in a ball around Wormmon almost protectively and Ken finds it most comfortable to do the same, pressing up against the other boy wherever possible. Ken vaguely thinks that there might be some sort of technical word for the strangely comfy position but he’s too tired to think of the name and he promptly passes out against Daisuke’s back.

He wakes up with a start and a yelp as ice cold water showers on his face. He’s on his feet in a second and the sun is in his eyes and he’s drenched and he’s confused until he hears Whamon’s voice make an announcement. 

“Rise and shine, sleeping beauties. We’re here!” His voice booms as he spurts another blast of water out of his blowhole. Ken barely gets a chance to process it before he’s doused again.

“Ok! Ok! _We’re up!”_ Ken growls. He rubs the water and the hair away from his eyes and looks up at the reason for his rude awakening. 

They’ve arrived on File Island.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact capes are really huge if you lay them out flat. I should know, I own three. And made two of them.


	4. Breaking Things

Ken quickly learned something. Savannas are hot. It was one of those sort of things that Ken technically already knew, but didn’t fully understand until he experienced them for himself.

They’d dried off rapidly once they’d set off in the approximate direction of Infinity Mountain and now Ken’s throat felt dry and raw under the god awful, sweltering sun. He’d tried to use his cape in some attempt at making shade, but eventually he’d given up and they’d shoved the cape into Daisuke’s backpack, along with his gloves. His shoulderpads had fallen off of Whamon at some point last night, now lost forever at the bottom of the ocean. He doesn’t particularly care. He gave up on keeping his metal bracers ten minutes ago, as they’d practically burned him whenever he’d accidentally brushed them against his legs. 

Daisuke has it worse off, not only having to tie his fluffy jacket around his waist, but also having the added heat of both Wormmon and his backpack pressed up against him. He looks like he’s about ready to pass out. Ken should probably do something about that.

“...Let me take your backpack for you.” He rasps, throat feeling as though it’s bleeding with the strain of speaking. Daisuke looks like he wants to say something, but doesn’t for whatever reason, and after a few seconds he almost reluctantly hands the backpack over. Ken slings it onto his back. Oh god that’s hot.

There’s what looks to be a forest in the distance. It seems like it’s a million miles away and his legs feel like giant weights. He can’t imagine how he’s going to deal with the trip back.

After what seems like an eternity, the reach the treeline and Ken practically collapses the second that he feels the luxurious shade. Daisuke flops down next to him and grabs his backpack again. He starts pulling things out and eventually finds the old fruit. It’s dried up and repulsive looking. Ken’s not eating that.

“...I’ll go see if I can find us something.” Daisuke says, chuckling tiredly. He pulls himself up and wanders off in some random direction. Ken can’t even begin to understand how the other boy could manage to have any energy. He feels like he’s on the verge of passing out. But his throat hurts so bad that he doesn’t think that he could. 

Wormmon is flopped onto his back next to Ken, antennae drooped flat against the ground. He looks like a dying bug. That thought itself almost compels him to reach out and pull the frail digimon back over, if only so that he doesn’t have to have that image in his head anymore. His hand stops mere centimeters from Wormmon before Ken remembers that he’s not allowed to do that and pulls back.

Daisuke comes back a few minutes later, carrying what appears to be apples and oh thank god is that a water bottle? It is, and Ken is overjoyed to hear that he can have it all to himself since Daisuke already had enough back at the stream he found just a little ways away. He drinks the entire bottle in under two minutes. The water is almost painful against his raw throat but he doesn’t care.

The groups makes quick work of Daisuke’s findings. Ken’s almost worried they’re going to make themselves sick with how fast they’re inhaling the food. It doesn’t slow him down any, though.

Eventually, they feel rested enough that they decide it’s time to keep moving. Ken is grateful to be walking under the familiar canopy of trees again. His clothes are sticking to him with the now cooled sweat and he smells like a rep team locker room, but he’s too happy about being out of that damned sun to care.

Daisuke seems genuinely happy too, even humming to himself as he walks along with a bounce in his step. Ken doesn’t recognize the song, but it sounds like it could be from a children’s show or something. It’s sort of cute sounding.

Their trek goes on peacefully, and Ken’s chest feels weirdly light in a way that he doesn’t really know how to place. Getting to just walk calmly like this was really pleasant, though. He thinks that he wouldn’t really mind if this lasted forever.

But as always, the world is hellbound on ruining everything for him. He almost isn’t even surprised when a fireball hits the ground in front of them. God damn it. 

He looks to see a Meramon charging at them, and instinctively reaches down to summon up a dark ring on the metal bracer that’s no longer there. Oh right.

...Shit.

They really can’t fight at all, can they?

He turns to look at Daisuke, who’s already scooping up Wormmon into his arms. He looks at Ken, and with a brief nod they take off running, past the fire and deeper into the forest as fast as their legs will carry them. 

They’re wobbly and slow, still drained from the heat and Ken prays that their tiny head-start will be enough to keep them from being barbequed alive.

“Get back here Digimon Kaiser!” Their attacker screeches, and the voice is close, too close, oh god they’re going to die. And then the worst possible thing happens. Wormmon, apparently anxious with anticipation to face the grave, jumps out of Daisuke’s arms and onto the ground, turning to face Meramon with a glare that no baby would ever fear. 

Against all of his survival instincts, Ken ends up stopping, turning to ask Wormmon what in the _ever loving hell_ he thinks he’s doing. 

Glowing, apparently. 

Turning into a ball light and rapidly morphing into something way bigger, apparently.

Oh.

Ken supposes that it’s actually kind of logical that Wormmon can evolve. Despite everything, Ken is still technically a chosen child. But it’s only when he sees Wormmon’s new form appear that he really realizes consciously that, yes, Wormmon is indeed his partner, and that means that Wormmon is supposed to be equipped to fight. And this new form definitely is.

He feels kind of bad for saying he’d be a dumb butterfly now.

“Spiking Finish!” His newly upgraded partner yells, dashing forward and impaling Meramon with the spikes on his arms. That must hurt. Stabbing someone on who’s on fire can’t be pleasant. 

But if Stingmon is in any pain, he says nothing. Instead, he simply pulls his arm out and lets Meramon fall to the ground. 

He turns back to the boys, and before either of them has a chance to say anything he flies straight at them and scoops the two boys off of the ground. Ken lets out a weird, strangled sound as the ground rapidly starts moving away from him. 

“It’s ok Ken, I’m going to get us away safe.” Says a voice that sounds way too strong and confident to be his partner’s. Ken doesn’t feel any comfort from this as he watches Meramon get up and start furiously chasing after them. And sees him prepare to launch a fireball at them.

“He’s shooting at us, oh my god we’re going to die.” Ken says as his voice dramatically rises in pitch. He glances at Daisuke to see the other boy looking annoyingly calm. Wormmon tries to reassure Ken that everything is going to be fine but it doesn’t do much good as Ken has to watch a fireball being hurled at his face. The shot comes so close that Ken can feel the heat on his skin and even Daisuke has the nerve to look scared. Oh god they’re going to die, they’re going to get shot out of the sky and splatter all over the ground. He never thought he’d want to throw up while airborne for a reason other than air sickness.

Another fireball whizzes past, and it’s at this point that Ken starts wondering what the hell Stingmon is even planning, and wishes he would hurry up and do it before they all go down in fire. 

But apparently the only thing Stingmon had in mind was running away, because that’s all they do for the next few minutes. Daisuke ends up being the one to come up with a strategy to avoid to gruesome, painful death.

“Hey, Stingmon. It’s Stingmon, right? D’you think you can fly up onto Infinity Mountain? He won’t be able to chase us up there.” Daisuke explains. It’s a solid plan. Based on Stingmon’s performance so far, and the fact that they’re already made it rather close to the mountain, it seems feasible. Stingmon agrees with this sentiment, and quickly starts climbing higher into the air. They eventually get up high enough that the fireballs fizzle out before reaching them. They might actually make it.

After a few minutes of hearing heavily buzzing wings and the enraged screams of their hotheaded pursuer below them, Ken feels everything come to an abrupt stop as he sees ground beneath Stingmon’s feet. He’s softly placed onto the ground again, and Ken’s filled with relief at being able to see something other than the ground far below them. He’s a bit wobbly on his feet, though Daisuke seems to have been affected even more so. Daisuke doesn’t express any of this disorientation though, instead simply thanking Stingmon for getting them out of the jam. Ken is about to express a similar sentiment when Stingmon degenerates back into his old self again.

The light fades and Wormmon collapses onto the ground.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t keep it up...it just...I’m sorry. I couldn’t keep it up any longer. I’m too weak. I’m sorry. I’m just so tired…” Wormmon mutters weakly. 

“It’s fine. You did fine. We’re all alive, that’s good enough. You did great, ok?” Ken says softly, kneeling down next to his collapsed partner. Daisuke gets down next to him and lifts Wormmon into his lap. 

“Yeah. You did great, little buddy! So don’t be so hard on yourself.” He says, giving Wormmon a thumbs up and handing him a leftover apple. Wormmon looks unbelieving, but accepts the offering anyways. He quickly starts munching it down.

“So...what’re we going to do now, then?” Daisuke asks, turning to face Ken again.

“Hmm, I suppose since we’re already up here, we can check to see if we can see the Village of Beginnings at all.” Ken suggests. And so they starts wandering along the edge of the mountain, staring down at the ground uncomfortably far below them. And then they see it.

Far below lies the most childishly themed set of buildings that Ken has ever laid eyes upon. He certainly _hopes_ that that’s the Village of Beginnings. Or else there are two bright pastel villages on this one tiny island. Does that rainbow of color not attract any evil digimon to it? It seems like a poor design choice for a place that allegedly home to every single newborn in the digital world.

“Well I guess that that’s definitely it, then.” Daisuke says from behind him.

“Yeah, I suppose it is. Now how are we going to go about getting down there?” Ken asks, fresh out of ideas. He supposes they could keep walking down the sort of trail, but that wouldn’t guarantee that they’d end up anywhere near the Village. Getting lost could be disastrous if they ended up running into an angry digimon with a thirst for vengeance again. They need to get Veemon back as soon as possible. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Stingmon to protect them. He’s just not sure if he’ll be able to do so without getting himself killed. They need to get Veemon. There’s safety in larger numbers. And right now, safety is top priority.

There’s also the fact that this was to be a two to three day trip. He’s not sure what’ll happen if they’re not back within the timeframe that Whamon gave them, but it’s probably better if they don’t have to find out.

“Let’s just wait until tomorrow morning, then Wormmon will be all rested up and he’ll be able to carry the both of us again.” Daisuke reasons. It’s a sound enough plan, he supposes. Losing a few hours of walking time is probably fine. They’d made it pretty far with Stingmon, probably enough to balance out the loss of time. Wormmon doesn’t seem to think so, though.

“No, it’s fine! We don’t have to wait because of me...I’ll be able to evolve again soon, I can do it!” He insists indignantly. 

“Yeah, right.” Daisuke says, rolling his eyes. Wormmon looks crushed.

“It’s fine buddy, we’ll wait until tomorrow. We don’t wanna push you.” Daisuke adds hastily.

“I can do it though!” Wormmon says, back to being frustrated and huffy. Ken supposes that’s better.

“Are you sure? If you really can do it, I’m not going to argue. But only if you’re actually sure you can do it. I don’t want to die falling from the sky because you got overconfident.” Ken says. Wormmon looks upset again as he contemplates this, but it quickly turns into a look of determination that Ken doesn’t recall having ever seen before.

“Yeah. I can definitely do it.” He states. Ken honestly doesn’t trust Wormmon’s judgement on this at all, but the little digimon starts looking more and more distressed the longer he waits so he ends up pulling out his digivice in spite of his misgivings.

His mistake. Stingmon can’t do it.

He shifts back into Wormmon mid flight and they crash into the trees a short distance below. Ken’s lucky, his back collides onto a thick branch and he watches as Daisuke has his fall is briefly interrupted by the treeline before he goes crashes straight through onto the ground. Ken hears the sound of bone breaking and a scream. He manages to pull himself up without falling and sees Daisuke curling up into a ball and he’s pretty sure arms aren’t supposed to bend like that. Wormmon, having landed much more pleasantly due to being a tiny bug, swings down on his net and lands beside Daisuke as Ken attempts to find a route down the tree.

He quickly gets down next to the sobbing boy and uselessly fumbling digimon to find that the lower half of Daisuke’s forearm is definitely not where it should be and he’s torn between throwing up and thanking god because this could’ve been so much worse.

He has no idea what he’s supposed to do though. He only barely recalls any sort of first aid training he had. He’s supposed to...move it back into place, right?

“This is probably going to hurt a lot, sorry. Hold still.” He warns Daisuke, who couldn’t respond even if he wanted to, as his teeth are clenched so tight that Ken’s afraid he’s going to break those too. Credit where credit’s due, Ken has to admit that Daisuke’s doing an incredible job at holding his pain back already. Ken’s sure if it was him that he’d be screaming his lungs out.

Ken grabs Daisuke’s arm with both of his hands and yanks it back into place, and he can practically hear the pain in the sickening crunch it causes. Daisuke inhales sharply and the tears start pouring down his face even harder. Ken’s almost scared by how well he’s holding up. He’s also scared that he might’ve just messed up Daisuke’s arm even more. He’s not sure what else he can do to fix it though, so he grabs some nearby twigs, attempts to lift up the broken limb as lightly as he can, and tells Wormmon to put a wrap around it. He tries to make it as tight as he can, but it’s still not half as solid as it should be and just looking at it makes him nervous. This is really bad. Oh god he hopes they don’t mess up his arm for life. Wormmon gives him a makeshift sling and he tentatively helps Daisuke into it.

Wait, doesn’t one of the older chosen carry a medical bag around with him everywhere? Does he know anything about first aid? He asks Daisuke about this.

“Oh, Jou? Yeah, he goes to med school.” Daisuke replies.

“Well can we get ahold of him? I’m worried that this might mess up your arm for good...I’d feel better if I got some instructions from someone who actually knows what they’re doing.” Ken says.

“Ok, send him a message. I mean, I can’t really…” Daisuke trails off, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out his d-terminal. Ken hesitantly takes it from him. He’s not really sure what he’s supposed to send though. He opens up the message and stares at the blinking cursor for a few minutes before he figures something out.

_Daisuke’s arm is broken. I have no idea what to do about it. Help._

_-Ken._

That’ll...probably suffice. He doesn’t mull it over any more and sends the message off.

“It would be a waste of time to just wait around for a response, let’s get moving again!” Daisuke says, still trying to keep up his happy farce despite still having his teeth clenched and hissing in pain with every movement he makes.

“Are you sure?” Ken asks incredulously. He knew that Daisuke was as stubborn as a cement wall but this was just insane. And probably really unhealthy.

“I’ll be fine! Don’t worry about me, I’ve got this.” Daisuke replies, waving his undecimated arm in a nonchalant gesture and turns to walk toward the flourish of pastel color in the distance. Ken wonders of he’s just that stupid or if he has no regard for his own wellbeing at all. After a few minutes, the d-terminal dings with the arrival of a message. He opens it up and almost laughs.

_Oh my GOD. IS HE OK!?_

Ken can’t repress a small snicker. It doesn’t go unnoticed, and Daisuke peeks over his shoulder at the eloquent message. He bursts out laughing and for some reason Ken isn’t annoyed at having such a loud noise so close to his ear. He shakes off the bizarre feeling in his chest and types back a reply.

_He’s ok. I mean, about as ok as someone who just fell out of the sky and snapped his forearm in half could be. I put it back into place, and make a splint for it. I put it in a sling too, is that ok?. Anything else I should do?_

He reads it over a few more times and sends it off with a click. They walk in silence for a few more minutes before it’s once again interrupted by the sound of an incoming message.

_...That’ll probably work fine for now, but you should really come back so we can get him to the hospital as soon as possible. For now, just make sure he doesn’t go into shock or anything, I guess. Oh god, this is insane. I really wish I could get over there and help you, but I’m stuck at school right now. I’ll see if Koushiro can get me to you guys as soon as I can, ok? Where are you guys?_

He finishes reading the message and looks up at Daisuke. He...doesn’t look like he’s going into shock or anything, but then again Ken isn’t really sure what that would look like. He really should’ve payed more attention to first aid. He’s not sure how he’d feel if Daisuke ended up dying because of him. A little voice in the back of his head says that this is kind of strange, given that he’d been intentionally trying to kill Daisuke for a long time. He doesn’t like that little voice. It’s giving him a headache.

_We’ll be at the Village of Beginnings in a few minutes. I suppose we can wait for you around there. Aren’t there any hospitals in the digital world that we could take him to? ___

__He knows deep in his heart that he’s being unreasonable. He could easily just stay here with Wormmon and Veemon while Daisuke gets treated at the hospital. That would be better. He shouldn’t compromise Daisuke’s health on account of him being scared of being alone. But the very mention of Earth makes his chest clench up and he can’t help it. The d-terminal dings._ _

_What!? Ichijouji, you shouldn’t be forcing Daisuke to walk! He’s going to end up getting even more hurt!_

__He almost feels angry at the accusal. He tried to get Daisuke to stay put! But no, the older boy was probably right. He shouldn’t have let Daisuke get away with it, even if he had insisted he was fine._ _

_I told him not to, but he said he would be ok. We’re almost there anyways. I’ll make sure he stops once we get Veemon back._

He sends the message off and looks up again. And it turned out that he’d been even closer to the truth than he’d actually thought.

__They’d already arrived at the Village of Beginnings._ _


	5. A Reunion by any Other Name

The village is no less vibrant and childish up close, sticking out like a sore thumb against the dark forest surrounding it. Ken isn’t sure where they were supposed to try looking first, but Daisuke is already taking off walking somewhere. Ok, he supposes they’re going that way, then.

The ground feels weird and squishy under his feet. Not unstable enough to make walking difficult, but just enough to be weird and disorienting. They pass a few more of the giant block towers before coming out to a large area filled up completely with digieggs. And it’s then that Ken starts to wonder how on earth they’re going to identify Veemon’s egg. Daisuke doesn’t seem half as worried as him, wandering forward in something like a daze, as though he isn’t really controlling his feet and is instead simply letting himself be pulled along. By what, Ken has no idea.

It’s then revealed that they probably wouldn’t have had that much trouble finding the egg anyways, even without Daisuke’s bizarre trance leading them.

There are four eggs quite clearly separated from the rest. It’s pretty clear just by looking at them which ones belong to which digimon. Daisuke walks over and scoops up a baby blue egg that’s covered in some light indigo spots. Ken only just realizes that the egg pile is missing a member when his question gets preemptively answered by a small, squeaky voice.

“Hey! Let go of my friend! Who are yo-” It shrills, and Ken looks over to see a bouncing baby digimon slide to a halt and stare at them in shock. He doesn’t remember the name for this specific marshmallow blob, but it’s jaw is dropped about halfway down the length of its body. That expression then morphs into one of pure joy as it bounds at Daisuke.

“Daisuke! You’re alive! How are you alive!? I thought I saw you get eaten!” It asks squeakily. Maybe this thing is actually baby Veemon. It sure seems to match Daisuke in that it doesn’t really seem to care about the things it says.

“Ken saved me. But more importantly, I dunno who you are. You’re kinda different looking, y’know?” Daisuke responds jokingly. The little digimon takes on a look of immense confusion at his first statement, before it finally notices Ken’s presence. Ken doesn’t think a marshmallow should be capable of taking on a look of such pure hatred so rapidly.

“I’m Tailmon! I mean, I’m Yukimibotamon now...But that’s not the important part at all! Why are you working with Ken!? Did he turn you evil or something!? Don’t worry Daisuke I’ll save you!” She squeals. This accusation makes Ken’s emotions a cocktail of sad and pissed off. Mostly the latter, though.

“Daisuke doesn’t need _saving_ from anyone! In case you weren’t listening, I already saved him.” He snaps.

“Like I’d ever believe that! You probably just brainwashed him into thinking that you did!” She screeches, attempting to take a lunge at Ken before being held back by Daisuke, who’s clearly struggling to hold the puffball in place with an egg in the same arm. Ken kneels down and leans in towards her.

“Now listen here you little sentient powder puff-” 

Yukimibotamon freezes his face with some kind of breath attack.

Ken reaches up and starts aggressively trying to scratch the ice off of his face, grunting in frustration while Daisuke reprimands the baby digimon.

“Yuki, that was mean. Ken really did save me. He helped me come get Vee and he’s going to help me fight Chimairamon now. Now, what do you say to Ken?” Daisuke chides as Ken wipes the last bit of frost off of his face.

“You killed my partner and I’m not sorry at all.” She says, giving him a look that told Ken that if she wasn’t a newborn, Ken would be dead.

Like the little thing’s partner. Yagami. Ken feels his anger slip away from him a bit as guilt starts gnawing on his chest. They really need to go and stop that thing of his before it slaughters anyone else.

“-And even if you don’t like him, he’s still coming with us. No attacking him, got it?” Daisuke says, finishing a mini-lecture that Ken had zoned out of while wallowing in his own guilt. Yukimibotamon doesn’t look any happier, but nods anyways. She moves out of his lap and hops over to Wormmon while Daisuke cheerfully plops onto the ground. Ken takes a seat next to him, staring at the other boy’s simple looking egg with little curiosity.

“By the way, Jou is coming here to check on your arm. He said he’d be here as soon as he could, but he didn’t really give me any idea as to when.” Ken says, just remembering about their expected visit. And the apparent necessity that Daisuke go to a hospital in the real world.

“Yeah? Ok then. Guess we might have to wait around for a while, knowing him.” Daisuke says, letting out a small chuckle and looking at Ken as though he’s supposed to understand that joke. Confusing.

“Does he get lost easily or something?” Ken asks, not really sure what else to say. Daisuke blinks for a few seconds. Then there’s a flash of something over his face, but Ken doesn’t get to figure out what it means because it’s gone before he can place it.

“Nah. He just gets held up because he’s always studying or doing an exam or something. I dunno. We don’t really see him much, to be honest. I couldn’t even say I know him all that well.” He says, laughing a lot quieter than before. Hmm. Now that he thinks about it, Ken thinks he remembers wondering at least once before about how the oldest chosen didn’t seem to show up as often as the others. So it’s studying and schoolwork then? Well, he supposes that makes enough sense.

“...I think I’m going to go talk to Yuki for a bit. Why don’t you try rubbing the egg for a while? You’re better off doing it anyways, actually.” Daisuke says suddenly. Before Ken has any time to object to or even think about this, he has an egg in his hands and Daisuke has already walked away.

...What the hell is he supposed to do with this?

He stares at the egg for a few seconds. Daisuke had said to...rub it, right? Befuddled, Ken starts to rub the egg. He doesn’t know why. What is this? This is ridiculous. He’s rubbing an egg. Why is he rubbing this egg? Is this some sort of caretaking thing that nobody ever told him about? Why? What’s with rubbing eggs? He doesn’t get it.

The egg doesn’t feel any different than he would’ve expected an egg to feel. Not that he’d put all that much thought into the texture of eggs. What’s inside of digieggs, anyways? It’s...probably not anything like an animal egg or anything like that. It is the digital world after all. So it probably just has...Veemon’s baby form inside it, and that’s it. Or something.

So does that mean that the rubbing is supposed to...wake it up or something? If you just smashed the egg, would the digimon inside be alive yet? If he lifted the egg up and smashed it on the ground right now, would Daisuke’s baby partner come out? Or maybe since it’s data, it would just be a hollow shell with nothing in it yet.

...It’s probably a bad idea to try testing that.

He should probably not hold this egg any more. It’s stirring up weird thoughts.

Should he just put it down, or should he put it in something? He wasn’t really sure how these things functioned, but it was probably something like normal eggs in that it’d probably be better to keep the egg warm. An idea forming, Ken grabs Daisuke’s backpack and starts digging around inside. 

In a few seconds, he pulls out his cape. Slowly, he wraps the cloth around the egg. There. All nice and snug. He lightly sets the egg down on the ground next to him. Yeah, that’ll be good.

It’s then that Daisuke decides to wander back over. He sits down and observes Ken’s handiwork. He doesn’t look disapproving or anything...But then again, Ken is never all that good at figuring out what Daisuke is thinking. Daisuke still doesn’t say anything, and Ken doesn’t really know what he’d want to say in the first place, so a few quiet minutes pass before he thinks of something.

 

“So...what are we going to do about the other eggs?” He asks gesturing to the set of three sitting off to the side of them. Daisuke is still quiet for a while, but he clearly thinks about the question.

“Just leave them here, I guess. It’d be way too dangerous for us to keep a bunch of babies around with us. I mean, there’s not really anything we can do about Yuki. If we tried to leave her here she’d probably try and follow us and end up getting hurt or something, y’know?” Daisuke responds, looking over almost fondly at the little puffball that’s still chatting up Wormmon a few meters away. For whatever reason, Daisuke then decides to lie on the ground. He looks a lot more tired all of a sudden. Though Ken supposes that it’s only natural that Daisuke would be worn out. Ken also supposes that it’d probably be better for his stress levels if he stopped staring at Daisuke’s arm.

He’s not sure what else to do, and so Ken ends up taking off his visor and laying down next to Daisuke. A few minutes of silence pass before the other boy decides to start pointing out shapes in the clouds. Ken doesn’t participate other than disagreeing every once and a while and he doesn’t notice himself falling asleep.

He does however, notice when he’s woken up by a freezing gust of air. He doesn’t need to look in order to know that it’s the vengeful marshmallow.

“Jou’s here.” She says, and promptly bounces back over to Wormmon again.

He looks up to see that yes, the older boy is certainly here.

“Hey! Long time no see!” Daisuke says in greeting, hopping up onto his feet far too quickly. He wobbles a bit as Ken quickly stands up behind him to provide some back support.

“...Hi.” Jou says nervously, and quickly starts about looking at Daisuke’s arm. Ken is relieved as the older boy fails to find any issues with it.

“It looks ok. Good job.” He affirms, turning to look at Ken. He seems somewhat nervous, but in his defense, he does an adequate job trying to hide it.

“I’m Jou Kido, by the way...Nice to meet you I guess? I don’t know.” He says, offering a hand out to the younger boy. Oh, so his last name is Kido. That sounds sort of familiar, somehow. He tentatively takes the hand and shakes it. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to say, and so he ends up not saying anything.

“...So, let’s get you back to the hospital, ok Daisuke?” Kido says, turning back to address the injured party again.

“...What!? I can’t go to a hospital!” The boy exclaims.

“What are you talking about Daisuke? You have to go to a hospital! You can’t just leave an injury like that!” The older boy shouts at him.

“But I can’t just leave Ken here! And besides, you just said it was fine!” Daisuke retorts.

“Yeah, temporarily! But you can’t just keep it like that! Ichijouji may be a genius, but his handiwork isn’t good enough to forego proper medical treatment!” Kido snaps.

“Then what am I supposed to do, leave Ken here by himself!? It’s way too dangerous!” Daisuke snaps back, gesturing his good arm wildly about.

“Then he’ll just have to come home” Kido says and _nope,_ it’s time for Ken to join this conversation.

“I’m sure there must be another alternative-” He starts, before a squeaky voice behind him interrupts.

“Why are you arguing? You’re just trying to keep Daisuke from going to the hospital, aren’t you!? I knew it! You’re out to get him!” Yukimibotamon accuses. Ken whips around to look at the little digimon that’d somehow crept up behind him without him noticing.

“No, that’s not it. I do want him to go to the hospital, I just…” Ken trails off, not sure how to explain to this child-like creature that he had no ill intent in trying to keep himself off earth.

“Just what!? You probably just want him to go to earth so you can start doing evil stuff again without him stopping you!” She yells with as much aggression as her squeaky voice will allow her.

“No! Cut it out, that’s not it at all.” Ken growls, starting to get fed up with the puffball again.

“Then what is it!?” She shrills.

“I just-!...I just don’t want to go back to the place I came from…” He says slowly, not sure how else to phrase his distress at the idea of confronting his family again. He looks back to Yukibotamon, ready for whatever ridiculous accusation she’ll make next. 

But it never comes. The baby digimon’s face takes on an uncanny expression. It almost looks something like pain. Ken doesn’t know why that worries him so much. The little digimon is dead silent for the longest time, and eventually Kido makes a move towards her, starting to say something that gets interrupted when she finally decides to speak again.

“...You don’t have to go back there if you don’t want to. Daisuke already wants to help you for whatever reason, so it’ll be fine!” She says with that same weird look in her eyes. Ken’s not sure how he feels about that statement. It almost sounds like she’s trying to reassure him or something. No, that’s stupid.

“No, no it won’t be fine. If I go back there, anyone who sees me is going to call the police and they’ll take me back there.” Ken attempts to explain.

“Then just wear a disguise then or something!” The little digimon argues.

“And do what!? Sleep under a bridge!? There’s nowhere for me to go!” He snaps, irritation getting the better of him.

“Then you could stay at Vamdemon’s old base.” She suddenly says. She says it so calmly, but a second later her eyes widen as though she’s surprised at her own words. She doesn’t take it back though. Ken can’t really be bothered to try and parse that when something else is already confusing him. Kido looks terrified for some reason. Daisuke looks just as confused as Ken feels.

“... _Who?”_

And so the two boys receive a very brief summary of the escapade involving Vamdemon that had apparently transpired on Earth during the chosen’s first adventure, and how he’d temporarily made a stronghold for his army’s stay in the real world. Daisuke recognizes the villain’s description, for some reason. Ken vaguely remembers hearing something about the fog thing that Kido mentions, but other than that he’s confused by all of it. At any rate, the base that Yukimibotamon describes certainly sounds like an adequate location for a hideout.

“...But are you sure it’s a good idea?” Kido says, still looking as deathly pale as he has from the first mention of the post-mortem enemy.

“Oh please, Jou. There’s not going to be any Bakemon left there.” The little digimon says almost teasingly, and Ken’s sure that if her eyes were capable of rolling, they would’ve. Kido doesn’t look any more sure about the idea as he explains it to Izumi over the gateport. Izumi then leaves to grabs disguise pieces so that Ken can stop looking like himself immediately once they get through the gate.

In a few minutes, he returns and asks them to pop through the portal.

Upon arrival, Ken is handed what might just be the world’s ugliest outfit. The other boys leave to rush Daisuke to the hospital and Ken is left to adorn the garish orange shirt and its accompanying green khakis. Izumi had also left some of his mother’s hairclips and a bright yellow baseball cap. So now Ken gets the added pleasure of having what appears to be the world’s worst haircut on top of his lovely outfit. He catches a glimpse of himself in a mirror placed in the hall and regrets it.

He’s vaguely thankful that Daisuke isn’t around to see this dumb hat. It almost reminds him of that other boy. Not because of any physical similarities, just because it’s a dumb hat. 

Now that he thinks about it, Takaishi’s hat must’ve fallen off at some point during the battle, because he hadn’t been wearing one when he…

Nope. Not going down that train of thought any longer. He raids some food from the Izumi family’s cupboards and shoves it into Daisuke’s backpack. Wait, actually. Hadn’t he taken his hat off himself? Yeah, he’d crumpled it up and thrown it on the ground right after his partner...died.

Wait, no, he isn’t going to think about this. 

Why can’t he stop thinking about it?

...Damn hat.

Wormmon stares at him in worry and scuttles about at Ken’s heels. Ken grabs Veemon’s egg off of Izumi’s bed and is about to put it in the bag when an idea forms. He digs through the bag again and locates his uniform and wraps it around the egg like before. He slowly places it into the now almost full bag and makes sure it’s not going to get cracked by anything before backing up and nodding in satisfaction at his handiwork.

Wait...what’s he supposed to do about the digimon?...Crap. He takes out the food and stuffs some of it in extra pouches in an attempt to make room for Wormmon. It’s...not going to work.

...He sighs and reluctantly puts some of the food back. 

He’s just getting Wormmon settled into the bag when Ken hears the worst possible sound. The sound of a key unlocking the front door. 

Ken scrambles. He practically throws the backpack on, startling Wormmon terribly and scoops Yukimibotamon off of the bed. He turns around and a woman is standing behind him. No, no, oh god no this is bad-

“...Who’re you? And where’s Koushiro?” The woman asks. Ken doesn’t think there’s any blood left in his face.

“Umm...I’m one of Koushiro’s friends...He just, uh...went out to go get something.” He replies, desperately trying to keep his voice from shaking as much as his hands are.

“Oh, really? It’s nice to meet you! I’m Koushiro’s mom. Will you be staying for dinner?” The oblivious woman asks with a bright, calming smile. It almost makes Ken feel less like puking with fear.

“No, I have to go. Right now, actually. It was nice meeting you, bye!” He sputters, and the scoots past her.

“Hey! Wait a second dear, I didn’t catch your name!” The woman says, but he’s already out the door and running down the hallway. He can’t deal with this. He should’ve never come back. He should’ve just stayed. He’s going to get caught he’s going to get sent back he’s-

“Stop running! Calm down, what’s wrong with you!?” Peeps a little voice in his arms. Oh right, Yukimibotamon. The fog over his head clears a bit and his heart slows down a few notches as his frantic running stops and turns back into walking. 

“Ok, yeah. Sorry, sorry. I was just scared that that lady was going to recognize me, that’s all.” He mumbles as he starts walking down the street, trying to catch his breath and quickly becoming aware of the fact that it looks as though he’s talking to himself.

“It’s going to be ok, Ken.” Comes a small voice from his backpack.

“Alright, shush. The both of you. Don’t talk while we’re out in public.” Ken orders as quietly as possible. He thinks that kid there still might’ve noticed him.

He speedwalks down the streets, heading towards the general area that the baby digimon had described. He feels eyes on him, and more than once Yukimibotamon squeaks in pain from him squeezing her too hard. Somehow, and after hours of anxious speed walking, he makes it to the clearing described by Yukimibotamon without anyone seeing through his ridiculous get up. There are bizarre scorch marks and what looks to be the leavings of explosions littered about, though grown over somewhat with weeds and grass. Yup, there was definitely a digimon battle here a few years ago.

Yukimibotamon asks...well, _demands_ to be put down. Ken obliges and the tiny digimon quickly starts pouncing about on the ground as though trying to locate something.

“Here!” She suddenly says. Ken walks over to see...a door handle on the ground. How inconspicuous. He reaches out and yanks on the handle, and finds that it’s a sliding door. It’s oddly easy to open, considering that it’s likely just been sitting here abandoned for years.

“Nobody locked the door?” He asks jokingly, looking over at Yukimibotamon. She’s not amused.

He lets Wormmon out of the bag and the group descends down into the base on an oddly fancy spiral staircase. Isn’t this a bit overkill for just a short-term base? Whoever this Vamdemon guy was, he sure was extravagant. And excessively weird. The base is filled with giant, empty rooms, sometimes with a few boxes in them.

A few doors have walls behind them. 

Ken sees nothing that would constitute a bed and wonders aloud if he’s going to be stuck sleeping on the floor or something.

“Well you could always sleep in Vamdemon’s coffin.” The little puffball tells him. He scoffs, but by the time they’ve made it all the way down to the coffin, and with no form of padding of any sort to be found anywhere else, it seems a bit more appealing.

With nothing else to do, Ken decides to sit down in the coffin. But not without moving the lid to the other side of the room. He doesn’t trust Yukimibotamon not to find a way to get it on top of the casket while he’s asleep. 

Bored, he ditches the hideous hat, and pulls out Veemon’s egg to rub it. Wormmon is doing what looks to be some sort of weird yoga in the corner, likely trying to stretch out the muscles out after being uncomfortably crammed into the backpack for hours. Yukimibotamon jumps up and down the steps, and Ken can’t tell if she’s playing or _training._

He’s not sure how he’s supposed to tell time down here, but eventually he hears his stomach rumble. He supposes that’s as good of a reason as any to start eating. He makes some sandwiches and distributes them to the other two before chomping into his own. It doesn’t taste the best, but at least it’s better than having fruit again. God he’s tired of fruit. 

He continues to munch on the sandwich, Veemon’s egg still sitting in his lap, when he suddenly feels movement. Coming from Veemon’s egg. He hears a crack. 

He looks down to see that Veemon’s egg is hatching.


	6. Back to the Beginning

There’s a dull pang in his chest as he realizes that Daisuke isn’t going to be present to greet his partner. The two digimon quickly notice what’s transpiring and rush over to the casket. Wormmon struggles to prop himself up into a position to see as Yukimibotamon bounces up onto the edge with ease.

The top of the shell breaks off and Ken finds himself staring at a little blue blob. The ball of blue looks up at him with big, confused eyes.

“...You aren’t Daisuke...Wait...the Digimon Kaiser! Why? Where’s Daisuke? What did you do to Daisuke!? You didn’t hurt him did you!?” The little digimon cries, bursting into hysterics. Ken is getting tired of dealing with crying children.

“Shh...Daisuke’s fine. He’s just not here right now, ok? He’s fine.” Ken attempts to soothe.

“Where is he!?” The distressed little thing cries.

“He got hurt, so he’s with the doctors right now so that he can get better soon. He’ll be back soon, I promise.” Ken tells him softly.

“He...he got hurt?” The fuzzy blue digimon whimpers almost inaudibly. Ken doesn’t get a chance to reassure him before the baby digimon bursts into tears.

“Waaa-haah! I’m sorry Daisuke! I couldn’t protect you! I’m so sorry!” He apologizes in anguish to his absent partner. Ken tries to shush him again to no avail. He has no idea what to do as the tiny digimon keeps on wailing. 

Luckily though, Yukimibotamon does. She bounces onto Ken’s lap next to her sobbing friend, and softly nuzzles him. The heartbroken digimon doesn’t even notice at first, too busy crying his lungs out to take any notice. But after what feels like forever, he starts to quiet down, sniffling quietly as tears keep rolling down his face.

“It’s ok Chicomon. Daisuke’s not going to die. He’s just a bit bashed up, that’s all.” The fuzzy marshmallow whispers.

“But...but! Daisuke got hurt and I wasn’t even there to try and protect him!” He sobs.

“Hey, hey. Stop that. It’s not your fault. You tried your hardest...and Daisuke is really, really proud of you, ok? It’s not your fault. Nobody blames you, so don’t be hard on yourself, ok?” Ken soothes, trying to remember what Daisuke had told him before. He’d really pegged the little guy’s reaction perfectly, huh? Ken should’ve paid more attention to all that. Then again, he hadn’t been expecting the other boy to be absent for his partner’s rebirth.

“...Ok.” Chicomon sniffs. That’s what he was called, right? That’s what Yukimibotamon has called him...Did digimon just know the names of all other digimon or what?

“Daisuke will be fine! I saw him myself and he was totally ok. It didn’t even look like it hurt!” Yukimibotamon continues to reassure him. The blue blob doesn’t really look all that reassured. Wormmon is peaking over the edge of the coffin as though he’s not sure if he should try and join into the conversation or not. He doesn’t get a chance to do so, though. 

“Let’s go play on the stairs!” The cream puff suggests cheerfully. Immediately, her companion’s face lights up. He springs up as though completely forgetting his emotional distress and leaps onto the floor, shouting a challenge to race her there. Yukimibotamon instantly agrees and the two infants starting bouncing off to the stairs together. 

Hmm...how does digimon evolution effect maturity level? Ken never really bothered to look into it. He hadn’t ever really been all that concerned with what a digimon’s thought process was. He sort of wishes he had, now. Well, he supposes it doesn’t really matter, but having it blatantly displayed for him to see was actually somewhat intriguing. It seems as though they keep their personalities and smarts, but their maturity drastically shifts. He supposes he could just ask about it, but he’s pretty sure miss angry marshmallow would rather murder him than talk to him. He’s also pretty sure that Chicomon wouldn’t be all that good at answering that kind of question. So that didn’t really leave any opt- wait no, Wormmon. He could just ask Wormmon. How did he forget about Wormmon. He’s literally sitting right next to Ken.

“Hey, Wormmon.” He says, carefully trying to keep his own self annoyance out of his voice. He thinks he might’ve succeeded. If anything, Wormmon doesn’t look any less nervous that usual when he turns to look up at him.“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about digimon biology, would you?”

“...Um...I think that might depend on the question…” Wormmon answers, slow and shaky sounding as always.

“Well, I was just wondering about why digimon seems more childish when they’re lower leveled, I guess.” Ken says, trying to seem nonchalant about it in an attempt to keep the bug from being stressed out any further.

“I...I don’t really know. I’m sorry.” Wormmon answers nervously.

“It’s fine. You shouldn’t say sorry so much, y’know.” Ken says, sighing. 

“I’m sor-uh, I mean...uh…” Wormmon stumbles, catching his own mistake but seemingly being incapable of figuring out a different response. He continues to stumble over himself, getting more and more scared looking as he keeps failing to make any words come out.

“...It’s fine. Just forget about it” Ken says hastily, unable to keep watching his partner’s distress. Wormmon looks down at the floor in what almost seems like disappointment. He almost says something, but stops before the first syllable makes it out and then begins to look even more upset, almost seeming to shake. Ken realizes that he might’ve been about to say sorry again.

“It’s fine, it’s fine...just. I don’t know, just say whatever. It doesn’t matter. Just...forget I said anything.” He says, fumbling over his words as he tries to figure out what he’s supposed to say in this situation.

“...Ok.” Wormmon mumbles, sounding no better. Why is Ken so bad at this?

Neither of them even so much as move for a long while. Ken has no idea what he’s supposed to do. Wormmon is still looking at him though, and he doesn’t know why.

“Don’t you want to do anything else?” He asks. Wormmon shrinks and starts scooting away from him.

“I mean, crap, uh. I didn’t mean it like that! I meant...Ugh!” He groans. Why is this so hard!?

Wormmon thankfully seems to get the point well enough, though, and stops moving away. He looks up at Ken again, seemingly waiting for him to finish explaining.

“I mean...uh...isn’t there anything you want to do? I mean, there’s not much around here, but surely there must be some sort of thing you do to pass time or whatever, right?” He asks tentatively. He’s not sure how much of Wormmon’s sad-contemplating look is the fault of the question and how much is the fault of his own tone of voice. He really needs to work on that.

“...No, not really.” Wormmon answers eventually. Not expecting that answer, Ken once again finds himself at a loss on ideas of what to say.

“Uh...ok then, I guess. Is there anything you want to do _now_?” He asks slowly. Wormmon contemplates this for a second. He then looks up at Ken with an expression that screams ‘I’m about to say something important’, and Ken feels vaguely scared for some reason. But then Wormmon drops the look and shakes his head in the negative. Wait, what? No, that wasn’t right.

“Tell me.” Ken says abruptly. Wormmon looks up in confusion and something sort of like worry. “Whatever it was that you wanted to say. Just tell me.”

“It’s...not important.” Wormmon says quietly, refusing to look Ken in the eye.

“Really? That’s not the impression I got.” Ken retorts, only to immediately regret it when Wormmon shrinks again. He’s not sure what to do about it though, and ends up just nervously tapping his fingers as he waits for Wormmon to give an answer or something.

“...Yeah, r-really.” Wormmon says unconvincingly. Ken doesn’t have the nerve to to say anything against it, though. And so, awkward silence reigns uncomfortably over the two of them, only interrupted by the occasional grunt or happy squeal over by the staircase. Oh well, at least somebody in this base is having a pleasant time. He’s not sure how those two haven’t worn themselves out, though. You’d think that a freshly hatched digimon would be rather hungry, but apparently that wasn’t really the case, at least not with Chicomon. Strange little thing. 

Not wanting to pay any mind to the awkwardness hanging in the air, Ken idly watches the baby digimon as they hop up and down in seemingly no particular fashion. He gets a few scares, seeing the babies misstep and fall flat on their faces a number of times, but each time they get up cackling as though the accidents never happened. After some period of time Ken starts to notice himself yawning. Surprisingly, the digimon start to follow in suit shortly after. So they really can run out of energy, huh?

They don’t seem to want to acknowledge said exhaustion though, still bouncing sluggishly up and down the steps with as much energy as they have left. Ken doesn’t think that letting them collapse would be healthy for them.

“Wormmon. Can you go...tell them it’s time for bed or something?” He asks uncertainly. If Wormmon has anything to say about the request, he doesn’t mention it, and quickly scuttles over to the tired little digimon. Ken, thinking that he has nothing more to do, starts laying down and trying to make himself comfortable, and is surprised to suddenly find Chicomon plopping down onto his chest. He props his head up and looks the digimon with a face of pure confusion.

“The floor’s cold! I don’t wanna sleep there! Lemme sleep in here!” The blue blob demands. Oh. Ken hadn’t really thought about that. Sleeping on the floor couldn’t be very pleasant, huh? Especially not for a little baby…

“Hey. Do you want to get in here too?” Ken says, sitting up to address the other marshmallow. He gets a look that could kill in return.

“No! Don’t touch me! I hate you and you have gross sweaty hands, too! You couldn’t pay me to sleep in there with you!” She snaps at him, hopping away to curl up against the wall and pretend that she finds it comfortable.

“Ok, ok. Jeez, I was just asking.” Ken grumbles, and promptly lays back down again. He doesn’t suppose that lying flat with Chicomon sitting on his chest would be all that comfortable, and so he curls on his side to make room for the little digimon. Despite the mild crampedness of the coffin, it’s surprisingly easy for him to drift off.

Another thing that’s surprising is when he’s awoken by yelling the next day. His eyes pop open at the sound of Izumi’s voice yelling and getting louder as he presumably runs down the steps towards the coffin. Ken moves to change into a sitting position, disrupting the snoring digimon who he’d been previously cuddling into his chest. Chicomon wakes up and squeaks in surprise as Ken sits up to look at their frantic visitor.

“What?” He says as he blearily attempts to rub the exhaustion out of his eyes to no avail. 

“There’s an insane signal coming from a location in the digital world! The scale is catastrophic! It could wipe out all life in the digital world!” Izumi raves.

“...What in god’s name are you talking about, Izumi!?” Ken asks exasperatedly.

“Like I said, there’s this signal that-” Izumi starts, but Ken cuts him off before he can repeat the ludicrous statement.

“I _heard_ you. I’m asking how on earth you came to the conclusion that something would be capable of destroying the entire digital world. Because the last time I checked, I’m pretty sure nothing that powerful existed.” He says, staring at Izumi incredulously as he ponders whether or not the other boy could’ve completely snapped under pressure or something.

“Oh it exists all right. And if we don’t do something about it, this some-or-other is going to explode. Just look at these readings.” Izumi says, sounding like something of a conspiracy theorist to Ken as he pulls out his laptop and madly starts to type. He spins the laptop around for Ken to see, revealing a large warp-like signal emanating from some location. A series of calculations were typed up next to the display. Those...looked devastating, yes. 

“Ok, so your program is faulty. That’s not a reason to come barging in here at...nine in the morning.” Ken reasons, noting the time displayed on the corner of Izumi’s laptop screen. If he ever comes back here, he really needs to bring a clock. It’s like an eternal night down here.

“I assure you that there’s no such fault in this program. This is real and you are going to open up a gate and we are going to go there. Now.” Izumi snaps, flipping the laptop back around and typing again.

“And how exactly are we supposed to stop this so-called mortal crisis? If it’s that dangerous, then two adult digimon and two babies who can’t digivolve aren’t going to be able to stop it.” Ken retorts as Izumi spins the laptop around yet again to reveal a digiport.

“I sent Taichi to go pick up Daisuke. Everyone who can make it will be there.” Izumi states, demandingly gesturing to the digiport and then to the digivice protruding out of Daisuke’s backpack.

“And you think that’s going to be enough?” Ken challenges as the other digimon move over to the two boys with sleepy, confused eyes.

“I think we’re going to try instead of immediately dismissing it as impossible.” Izumi snaps. Ken doesn’t feel as inclined to argue any more and hastily opens up the digiport.

He quickly slings Daisuke’s backpack on and Chicomon is already cheering in excitement and bouncing about at the prospect of reuniting with his partner. It’s only when they’re already starting to position themselves around the laptop that Ken realizes that Yukimibotamon probably shouldn’t be participating, or as raring to go as she is.

“Hey. You can’t come along, stay here.” He tells her. Probably a bad choice of wording on his part.

“Don’t order me around! You don’t own me, I’ll come if I want to!” She yells at him.

“You’d just get yourself hurt! What could you possibly do, anyways?” He argues.

“A lot better than you!” She retorts childishly.

“Oh, would you stop being so difficult?! You’re only arguing with me because you hate me, you know for a fact that you can’t go.” He snaps, beyond fed up with the small digimon’s constant refusal to listen.

“It’s fine, Ichijouji. She can come, we’ll just have to be careful not to lose track of her.” Izumi says, suddenly jumping in.

“That’s just putting her in unnecessary danger! Why are you siding with her!?” Ken asks in disbelief.

“It’s really not that big of a deal. She can take care of herself, Ichijouji. Let’s just hurry up and get moving.” Izumi says, skillfully dodging the question and holding his digivice up to the laptop without another word. Chicomon and Wormmon pass through with him.

Not wanting to be left alone with Yukimibotamon for even an instant, Ken quickly lifts his digivice and ports the two of them through.

The light fades and Ken finds himself lying in sand. He sits up to find that the group has exited into a desert, and he’s too busy trying to figure out why it looks sort of familiar to be aware of how nice it feels to have his hair up again. He is aware of how glad he is to have shades protecting him against the blaring sun, though. 

He quickly gets up and brushes himself off as Izumi starts trying to figure out which direction the disturbance is coming from. Wormmon is looking at him weirdly yet again and he has no idea why. Izumi soon points out the which way they need to go and so he doesn’t get to ask. They only pass a few more sand dunes before they find both the rest of the group and the source of their problem. Daisuke’s face lights up with excitement upon seeing them but Ken is too distracted by the sight of his old base sinking into the desert behind them to pay much attention to his ally.

“My...base?” He mumbles as Chicomon bounces into the embrace of Daisuke’s functional arm with glee, which quickly turns into distressed questions about his human’s wellbeing. Yukimibotamon instantly bounces away the second she sees Yagami, yelling to be picked up.

“Yes. It seems you’ve made quite the death machine, Ichijouji.” Izumi confirms as he taps away at his laptop again.

“What? No I...I don’t understand. The base really isn’t that powerful! Exploding would barely cause any damage to the desert, much less the whole digital world!” Ken exclaims.

“Well, that’s certainly not what these readings say.” Izumi tells him as he finally turns off the laptop.

“Again, maybe your readings are just wrong!” Ken reasons. Because the base just couldn’t possibly be that powerful. Someone would have to have messed with it for it to cause even a little bit of damage.

“I don’t know, Ichijouji, we’ve been feeling some sort of weird shockwaves coming out of it. There’s definitely a lot of _something_ down there.” Kido says. The whole group of chosen appears rather tentative, for whatever reason. Especially Ishida and the redhead girl. The pink glitter haired one and her plant are absent.

“Well, whatever it is, we aren’t going to figure it out just hanging around here. Let’s get in there!” Yagami orders, missing all of his usual gusto but apparently none of the resolve. The group nods in unison, though Daisuke is the only one who appears even slightly cheerful.

The group takes off running towards the base, and Ken soon learns what exactly Kido meant by ‘shockwaves’. It hits without warning, a burst of...something. He can’t describe it with words, but he suddenly feels something hanging off of his chest. It isn’t even painful, but for some reason it makes Ken feel like collapsing to his knees. It seems to hit the rest of the group in varying degrees on intensity. Ishida more than anyone else. He’s shaking like a leaf and Ken swears he hears a sniffing sound come out of him. Yagami and the redheaded girl’s reactions are similar, though they pull themselves back up a bit faster. Next in line would be Kido, perhaps only because Daisuke and Izumi seem rather unfazed. Though Ken figures that might just be in part due to Daisuke downplaying his own reaction. The digimon don’t seem to have much of a reaction either, besides Wormmon, who looks like he might be shaking. 

Yagami turns to say something to the rest of the group but whatever he says goes unheard due to the sound of a giant roar resonating through the air. Ken looks around to find that a giant bug digimon is flying straight towards them and he notices out of the corner of his eye that Izumi is whipping out his computer for some reason. The rest of the group starts to pull out their digivices as the ginormous insect slams into the ground next to them, stirring up a wave of dust and causing a few of them to fall with the sudden disruption underfoot. 

This isn’t helped much by the entrance of several adult digimon, and as the group starts attacking Ken realizes that he should be evolving Wormmon, too. He looks down at his partner first, getting a brief nod from him before he pulls his digivice out, and after a few seconds Stingmon reenters the world. They’re already losing though.

Despite grossly outnumbering the overgrown bug, the digimon seem to make no progress and are tossed back with alarming ease. Though they seem to begin faring better with the added help of Stingmon.

Izumi finishes whatever in the world he was up to on the laptop and announces that the digimon they’re fighting is a perfect level digimon, apparently known as Okuwamon. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to do with that information besides worry.

“Don’t worry about us, we can handle this. You guys get moving and stop the base from blowing up!” Greymon shouts. Ken really doesn’t think that’s the most advisable strategy but the group starts running up to the base again either way. They come up to a gigantic crack in the base’s side, likely formed by explosions. The front of the group starts piling through it and it’s then that the next wave hits. It’s stronger this time. Maybe it’s just the closer proximity but Ken feels almost overcome with nausea. He hears a small squeak of pain and turns to see that Daisuke has formed a death grip around his baby partner. For a reason he doesn’t fully understand, he puts a hand on the other boy’s shoulder and helps him up into the base. It’s a mess of smoke and destruction, and Ken’s not sure what’s from the last battle and what’s from the explosions. It probably doesn’t matter, but either way Kido climbs through after them and the group starts moving again. There’s far too much rubble to get around at any decent pace and Daisuke quickly finds that he needs the use of at least one of his arms.

“Chico...go over to Ken, I can’t carry you.” He says quietly. Ken has no idea why he’s the one being volunteered when Daisuke clearly has plenty of better options. Chicomon looks incredibly unsure himself, but only for a few seconds before he nods and hops over to Ken’s side. Ken’s not sure what he’s supposed to say and so he opts to say nothing and simply picks the little digimon up. He soon finds that maneuvering over the rubble with one arm is quite a great deal harder than he expected it to be, but that and all other trains of thought are brought to an abrupt halt by the sound of a scream.

Coming from Yagami.


	7. A New Path To Somewhere Or Other

Ken is running before he knows why.

He’s throwing himself over rubble and racing towards the source of that scream so hastily that he doesn’t feel the extra weight in his arms.

Daisuke is already far ahead of him, bolting past Izumi around the corner where the scream had come from. Ken sees the other boy come skidding to a halt and doesn’t get a chance to ask why as an even greater increase of weight causes him to drop Veemon onto the ground. The digimon immediately uses his newly rediscovered legs to sprint towards his stunned looking partner. Ken quickly follows in suit, while Daisuke remains worryingly paralyzed. 

They reach Daisuke, and Ken turns to see the source of the problem. He regrets it.

He sees Yagami collapsed onto his knees, shaking. The girl and the baby digimon in his arms look as though they’re trying to talk to him, but whatever they’re saying goes completely unheard. Yagami only stares blankly in front of him, not responding in the slightest. Ishida is just standing there, frozen in place. Ken can’t see his face, but he clearly has his eyes glued on the horror in front of him.

Two girls, lying dead on the floor. Not very far apart: Yagami hadn’t moved an inch after the other girl had thrown herself forward to serve as a shield. The unwanted memory replays over and over again as Ken fails to tear his eyes away from the burn seared into Inoue’s chest. The vision in front of him blurs and he’s not sure why until he feels something on his cheek and realizes he’s crying. No one notices. They’re all too focused on the other girl, the fallen younger sister. A crumpled up ragdoll, bending in the most unnatural and upsetting directions. The camera she’d always carried around has been lodged into her chest, almost looking as though it’s impaling her. Another indescribable ‘shockwave’ hits then, and Ken vomits. Yukimibotamon abruptly bursts into tears and the girl beside her looks confused as to who she should be trying to comfort. Whether she realizes that there are tears running down her own face, Ken can’t tell. 

He feels a hand on his shoulder and turns around to see that it’s Daisuke, managing to make himself look slightly less shaken than before, somehow. Veemon isn’t half as stable, sobbing almost as much as Yukimibotamon. 

Izumi and Kido come around the corner, the latter asking Ken if he’s ok before his eyes fall on the two bodies. He faints and crashes to the floor. Izumi looks as though he just might join him as the loud crash finally seems to snap Ishida out of his stupor. He whips around like a deer caught in headlights. He just stares blankly at them for a few seconds, but then rushes over and gets on the ground to help Kido. 

Izumi starts up again too, but instead moves over to Yagami and the wailing digimon. He kneels down next to the older boy and starts trying to get a response from him. If he has any success, Ken can’t see it. Ishida manages to lift Kido up and it’s then that Ken realizes that he should probably be doing something other than just stand there with Daisuke’s hand on his shoulder. He...has no idea what he’s supposed to try an do, though. He can’t be of any comfort to any of these people. He’d probably just make things worse by saying anything. He doesn’t think he can do much for Kido either. He knows next to nothing about taking care of people. 

He has no idea what to do.

He feels kind of useless. So perhaps it’s a lucky thing when Ishida starts deciding things.

“Sora.” He says, looking back at the girl and very clearly trying to keep his eyes trained only on her. “Bring Taichi. We need to get them out of here.”

The girl in question doesn’t seem to respond for a second, and Ishida opens his mouth to repeat himself before she starts moving. Yagami doesn’t resist being pulled onto his feet, and Sora starts pulling the unresponsive, expressionless boy along. Ken accidentally looks into his eyes for a second and quickly decides to never do that again.

“You guys keep moving. We’ll try and rejoin you as fast as we can.” Ishida orders in a tight, strained voice, and quickly takes off back towards the exit. Sora says nothing, ushering Yagami’s lifeless body along. The small remainder of the group watches her go, before awkwardly turning to look at each other. After a few moments of anxiety ridden silence, Izumi works up the nerve to speak.

“Well, uh...let’s get going then.” He says with a voice shakier than even Wormmon, and reaches down to pick Yukmibotamon off the ground. Not knowing what else to do, he nods, along with Daisuke and Veemon, and they reluctantly start moving in the right direction again.

As they step forward, he tries to keep his head up, but it doesn’t do him much good as he’s soon met with the unfamiliar but unmistakable scent of decaying bodies. It takes all of his willpower to repress the urge to throw up again. Izumi appears to be hyperventilating as they hurry their way through the area as fast as they possibly can.

They make it to the blood splattered boulder and despite not having seen it, the image of the youngest chosen being crushed flashes vividly in his mind anyways and he finds himself unable to move. His lungs don’t seem to want to work all of a sudden.

He feels a hand on his shoulder again and sees Daisuke giving him a big, fake smile. It really doesn’t make him feel any better, but it’s too shaky and obviously forced for it to seem as unnerving as he’d once found it. He attempts to return the smile but his finds that he can’t manage it without his mouth shaking. Daisuke seems to get the message anyways and starts walking again. Ken follows and tries not to notice how deathly Izumi’s face looks with the way all the blood seems to have drained away from it. The tension in the air feels like it’s suffocating him as they try their best to keep walking.

The reactor comes into sight and almost Ken feels a wave of relief as he starts running towards it. The group makes it into the room as an explosion goes off in the ceiling and Ken ducks out of the way of a large chuck of rock. That...probably could’ve been deadly.

Daisuke walks up closer to the reactor to observe a small indentation in the side, and Ken quickly does the same, trying to piece together what the crevice could be instead of what the area behind him could look like.

“It looks like the shape of a crest.” Izumi announces as he comes up behind them.

“Which one?” Daisuke questions.

“Maybe it’s the one up there.” Yukimibotamon deadpans, making whatever armless equivalent to gesturing that she can. The symbol chipped into the outer shell of the reactor doesn’t resemble anything Ken can remember seeing on the chosen’s eggs, nor does he remember why exactly the symbol is there in the first place.

“It doesn’t look like any of our crests.” Izumi says, reaffirming Ken’s conclusion. 

“Don’t _you_ know what it is?” Yukimibotamon asks, clearly addressing Ken with the angry chip in her voice.

“No, I have no idea.” He replies truthfully. 

“What the heck! This is your base, isn’t it!?” She squeaks angrily.

“Yeah I just...don’t know. I have no idea what that’s supposed to be.” Ken says. It’s a startling and worrying realization, that he either can’t remember the details of his own home or never knew them to begin with. He _built_ this place, he should remember what things are! But in trying to recall it, he finds himself hitting a wall of fog. l feels as though it’s on the tip of his tongue, just out of reach, but his fingers stop just short of the answer. It’s a disquieting feeling, and one that isn’t helped by the arrival of another ‘shockwave’.

“Well, if the slot there is any indication, it’s probably the crest that’s supposed to go in there.” Izumi reasons.

“Do you think the fact that it’s missing is what’s making the base go crazy?” Daisuke ponders.

“...That actually might be it. Well Ichijouji, any idea where that crest is?” Izumi asks. Ken tries to figure it out, really he does. He stares at the outline of the unrecognizable crest, as if trying to will its location into his mind, but he’s met with the same disconcerting fog, no matter what he tries.

“...No.” He says eventually.

“Yeah, I figured as much. But I also think that the crest is probably the only way to stop the reactor, so we’re going to have to think of something.” Izumi says, leaning in to inspect the hole closer.

“Why don’t we just break it?” Daisuke says suddenly.

“...What?” Izumi asks in disbelief.

“Let’s just break it!” Daisuke repeats, not showing any sign of humor. Ken isn’t sure if that’s better or worse.

“That would...probably explode the base.” Izumi says slowly, staring at Daisuke as though trying to parse through his brain.

“But that wouldn’t still explode the whole digital world, right?” Daisuke reasons.

“Actually...no. It might not. I’ll have to run that over but...I think that could actually work! If we cut off the connection first, then the strange signal could potentially stop, since it doesn’t appear to be chemical based…” Izumi goes off on a mumbling tangent, ripping out his laptop and booting it up at rocket speed. 

“All right!” Daisuke cheers with a somewhat forced enthusiasm. Ken stares as Izumi feverishly types, vaguely worried that the older boy might accidentally break the keyboard.

“That’s it! The shockwaves are unrelated to the base’s wiring, it’s being caused by some sort of dark energy, so it wouldn’t react to a chemical based explosion. And if we blow up the base, then the source of the shockwaves will likely be destroyed too! It could work!” He exclaims. Dark...energy? What? Ken is once again struck with the idea that Izumi just might be insane. The shockwaves were...dark energy? What on earth did that even mean? If it was energy, then it had to react somehow, right? Ken couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

“Have Veemon digivolve into Fladramon and blow a hole so that we can get out. We’ll get as far away as we can and then see if we can get a concentrated attack with all the digimon on the reactor.” Izumi orders, either not noticing Ken’s confusion and distress or not caring. Daisuke immediately pulls out his d-terminal and within a minute Fladramon starts pounding on the walls to break them out of the base.

“Dark energy?” Ken finally manages to ask.

“Yes, the source of the shockwaves is probably some sort of evil device running on the power of darkness.” Izumi says simply, as though there’s anything scientific or logical about the words coming out of his mouth. 

“You really are crazy.” Ken blurts. Izumi only glares in response before going back to his incessant typing.

“We don’t have much time left. How close are we to getting out?” He asks Fladramon, continuing to mess around with a code made of what looks to be the incomprehensible rune language that Ken recognizes from the countless ruins and caverns scattered about the digital world. He could make heads or tails of any of that?

“Yup, we’re almost there. I can feel it!” Fladramon, and at almost the same moment, he breaks through to create a hole of light. Daisuke gives a cheer, only for it to be cut off by the deafening sound of something crashing into the wall of the base. The wall gives away a second later to reveal Okuwamon’s face. It screeches before slamming into the wall again. The rest of the wall caves in and Okuwamon is pushed into the base by a fireball. The oversized beetle falls onto the floor, taking up half the room to move around.

“Hey! Watch it!” Fladramon yells, before running to scoop up his partner.

“Oh, hey! Sorry guys. Is there a game plan yet, or are we still just hitting things?” Garurumon’s voice calls.

“Well I don’t really get it, but as far as I can tell, we have to get the kids as far away from the base as possible, and then we’re all going to hit that pink thing there, and then the base will explode.” Fladramon explains as Okuwamon attempts to stand up, only to be shoved back down by a ball of electricity.

“Wait, I thought we were trying to make sure the base _didn’t_ explode!” Kabuterimon exclaims in confusion.

“I think it’s a different kind of explode...or something like that.” Fladramon says as he plucks up Izumi.

“Well, alright then, I guess.” Stingmon says, flying down in front of Ken and bending down to let the boy climb up himself. He almost gets squashed by Okuwamon’s arm as he takes off. Another shockwave goes off, and Ken instantly wishes that he could be anything other than airborne. 

He hears the other bug roaring ferociously behind him as Stingmon flies him over the desert to the incapacitated portion of the group. Ishida and...was her name Sora? Watch in confusion as he’s plopped down onto the sand in front of them. Kido still seems to be out for the count and if Yagami’s made any improvement, Ken can’t tell. He turns back to watch as Stingmon zips back towards the base, zooming forward and smashing straight into Okuwamon’s face. The larger digimon falls to the ground again as Fladramon runs up with Daisuke and Izumi.

“All right, I guess we’ll go blow up that base then.” He says, placing the boys on the ground. Daisuke gives him a thumbs up before he whips around and starts running back towards the base again.

“What!? You’re blowing up the base!? Why!?” Yamato exclaims, turning towards Izumi in disbelief.

“We can take out the source of the shockwaves by blowing up the rest of the base. I ran it over a bunch of times, I’m sure it will work!” Izumi explains. He isn’t the only one surprised when Ishida grabs him by the shoulders.

“There are _bodies_ in there! What the fuck were you thinking!? _**Takeru** is in there Koushiro!”_ The older boy screams. Izumi loses all semblance of colour in his face as Sora gasps as she tries to put a hand on the raging boy’s shoulder. Ken sees movement out of the corner of his eye and turns to see that Kido is waking up.

Looking back on it, Ken wonders what it must be like to wake up and witness a brilliant, deafening explosion. 

Brilliant. That’s the only way to describe the sight of the giant ball of burning, bursting red fireworks. A giant wave of heat rushes past him as he watches his former home disappear in a cascade of flames. He doesn’t think he could look away if he wanted to.

Chunks of building go flying and crashing into the ground and Ken has the presence of mind to worry about his partners wellbeing. He looks to see the bug speeding towards them just fine and he sighs with relief. 

And then something...unexpected happens.

In a flash, all the light is gone. Another, less describable, but far more powerful wave washes over him, and a giant, pitch black geyser erupts from the ground. The flames soon disappear as the inky liquid showers down and the hole created by the explosion is rapidly filled with liquid. He feels his breath catch in his throat and he can’t discern why, so he instead focuses on the sound of a shout.

“What _is_ that!?” Kido shouts, scrambling to his feet with eyes so wide they look like they’re about to pop out and shaking so much that Ken feels compelled to make sure the older boy doesn’t topple back over. No one in the group is equipped to respond, all engulfed in the same indescribable sense of paralysing dread. The words spur Izumi into action though, and the boy pulls out his laptop to once again begins typing like a maniac.

“These readings...what on earth is this!? I’ve never seen anything like this before!” He cries suddenly. Ken walks over to see that the older boy’s laptop is going completely haywire. Random letters and numbers fly across the readings chart, making it an incomprehensible mess. The display that’d one shown the base’s energy signature has glitched out completely, resembling a staticy television while flashing strange, vibrant lights every few seconds. 

Well he certainly _hopes_ Izumi’s computer hasn’t done this before.

“I...have no idea what’s happening, but we should probably get out of here immediately. Whatever...this. Is. It’s probably really dangerous.” Izumi says reasonably.

“Yeah. Yeah ok let’s do that.” Sora says, grabbing the slightly less dazed Yagami up onto his feet as the digimon finally catch up with them. All of them return to their child forms on the spot.

“Taichi! What’s happening? What’s all that black stuff?” Agumon cries to his partner, who only barely seems to notice that he’s there.

“We don’t know. We’re going to get out of here first, and then we’ll see if we can find out, ok?” Kido explains.

“Ok!” Agumon agrees easily, not question why his partner wasn’t the one to answer. The group doesn’t waste another moment and they quickly start off towards the forest in search of a television. The one they’d come through in the desert is as good as gone. 

Ken suddenly recalls the laptop sitting in Vamedemon’s base and realizes that Izumi brought two goddamn laptops with him. And they called _Ken_ a crazed madman.

It feels strange, walking through the desert again. Mostly because he can’t feel the sun. He can see it, sure, but for reasons Ken doesn’t want to contemplate, the whole desert seems to have gone icy cold. He rustles around in Daisuke’s backpack and finds his cape. It’s not that much more warmth, but it’s something. He responds to the disapproving glare that Ishida gives him with an uncaring shrug. It’s cold. He wants to wear his cape.

The sun is just passing the halfway point by the time they reach the forest. He thinks they’re somewhere on the opposite side of the desert from where he and Daisuke had originally exited it. Izumi states that there’s a television not too far away, and Ken sighs with relief. He feels like he’s starving. It occurs to him that this might be because he hasn’t eaten anything but a sandwich in the last 24 hours. He should probably try and rectify that soon.

“Hey Koushiro, can we stop and find something to eat?” Daisuke asks, apparently feeling just as unnourished as Ken.

“No, we’ll get something once we’re back on Earth.” Izumi states firmly. Daisuke groans in disappointment and Ken finds himself sympathizing with the other boy’s petty plight. 

“But Koushirooooo!” Daisuke moans.

“Do you mind!?” Yamato snaps bitterly.

“What? Aren’t you hungry?” Daisuke asks.

“People have died!” Yamato yells, voicing cracking far more than he probably intended. Ken feels a pang of guilt. 

“I know! I _watched!_ ” Daisuke snaps in response. It’s only after the whole group stares at him in shock that he seems to realize what he said. He looks around nervously for a few seconds before he decides to start speedwalking in the supposed direction of the tv, staring at the ground and fidgeting like crazy. Kido looks at Ken as though he wants to say something and so Ken finds himself choosing to speed up and walk next to Daisuke. The other boys seems to be fiddling with something in his pocket almost contemplatively. And once again, he seems to have completely lose his grasp on his mask. Ken should...probably say something, right? What’s he supposed to say though? He has no idea how to comfort people.

Comfort, comfort...Daisuke put a hand on his shoulder earlier trying to comfort him, right? So maybe he liked that. 

Tentatively, Ken reaches a hand up and places it on Daisuke shoulder. Not sure what else he’s supposed to do, he lifts his hand off again and places it on again in a motion that’s far too awkward and slow to be considered a pat. Daisuke gives him a look.

“What are you doing.” He says. It’s really not a question, but Ken tries to come up with an answer anyways.

“I...don’t know. I don’t know how friends work.” He fumbles. He doesn’t understand why Daisuke’s eyes light up. Or why he starts grinning.

“...What’s that look for?” Ken says nervously.

“Did you just call me your friend?” Daisuke asks almost giddily.

“I...suppose I did.” Ken says slowly. Daisuke practically glows, softly trying to repress his giggling. Ken’s face feels weirdly warm.

“Good to know. Well then, _friend._ Now that we’re officially _friends_ and all that, can I ask you a teensy-weensy favor?” The other boy asks. Ken can’t tell if he’s being teased or not.

“...Sure.” He agress uncertainly.

“Can you please take your hand off of my shoulder?” Daisuke asks, chuckling. Oh wait, he was still doing that. Crap. Crap. Uh…

“Yeah...ok” He says, and quickly drops his hand. Daisuke chuckles again and Ken feels like he’s going to die of embarrassment.

“Stop making fun of me!” He whines..

“Oh Ken, I’m just teasing you in a _friend_ way.” Daisuke jokes.

“Oh shut up. I take it back, I hate you.” Ken grumbles, halfheartedly trying not to grin.

“You wound me, Ken.” Daisuke says, before bursting into laughter at his own statement.

He’s not sure if it’s the dumb look on Daisuke’s face, or just the way he said it, but Ken suddenly finds that he’s laughing too.


	8. The Space Between Nowhere And The World

The floor of the base is cold, but Ken barely notices. He just sits up against the wall, listening as Daisuke rambles about something or other. He lost track of what the other boy was saying a while ago. He changes subjects way too much, like he’s trying to keep the ball rolling no matter what. Even though he stopped being able to catch up ages ago, Ken still nods along every once and a while. He’d rather listen to Daisuke talk than be left to his own thoughts.

The digimon have all gone about in different directions, wandering around and chattering or something. He’s not really paying attention to what they’re up to. 

He and Daisuke are the only humans left in the base right now. The older kids went out to get supplies for them. Kido was going to get them a first aid kit, and see if he could get them any food. He’d grab takeout if nothing else. Izumi said he’d try and dig up some old clothes and some scissors to cut up Ken’s hair in case he ever needs to leave the base. Ken’s still not sure how he feels about the second part of that plan. He’d honestly rather stick to the dumb hat.

Sora took Taichi back home. Ishida, despite being extremely pushy and bossy for some reason, eventually listened to her long enough to agree to go find something for them to sleep on. Though he spent a while insisting that Ken should sleep in the coffin.

Nobody had even offered Daisuke a job. Whether they didn’t think there was anything he could do or they already knew that he’d refuse and demand to stay with Ken, he wasn’t sure. He suddenly realizes that Daisuke just asked him a question that he hadn’t heard.

“...What?” He says sarcastically, hoping that the question was something that would warrant that reaction.

“I said, let’s surprise Koushiro by cutting your hair off before he gets back!” Daisuke says excitedly. Oh good, it _was_ a weird question.

“How and why?” Ken responds curtly.

“I have a knife, and because it would be funny!” Daisuke answers happily.

“...Why do you have a knife?” Ken asks slowly, trying to keep the mild horror out of his voice.

“I brought it along when we went to take down your base in case of an emergency!” Daisuke explains nonchalantly. God, he finally makes a friend, and it ends up being the craziest person on the planet. Ken swears this guy might actually be a serial killer.

“...You’re actually insane, you know that?” He tells him. The other boy bursts into laughter, and then proceeds to pull a knife out of his pocket. Wait, he’d had it on him!? Just...sitting in his pocket? It’s official. Daisuke is definitely a serial killer.

“Nope, you aren’t coming near me with that thing.” Ken says, jumping onto his feet and quickly backing up.

“Oh c’mon, Ken! I’m not going to hurt you, I promise!” Daisuke says, jokingly pretending to sound offended.

“You say, holding a knife which you intend to bring near my head.” Ken retorts.

“Don’t be such a ‘fraidy cat! I’m really good at using it, I won’t even nic you, promise!” Daisuke insists. 

Ken gets the distinct impression that Daisuke isn’t going to let him _not_ do this, and so he finds himself begrudgingly allowing the other boy to sit him down on the edge of the coffin. Daisuke drops down to his knees behind him and Ken resists the urge to flinch away from the feeling of a cool blade next to his face. Daisuke grabs his hair and cuts through it easily. Ken almost doesn’t feel it. Meaning that the blade being held near his face is definitely razor sharp.

“I can’t believe I’m letting you do this.” He mutters under his breath.

“Just think of it as a trust building exercise!” Daisuke quips as he hacks off another chunk of Ken’s hair. While Daisuke has yet to break his promise not to nic him, Ken is almost positive that his hair looks like a shoddy, chopped up mess. He can practically feel the unevenness of it against his head. He feels the last bit of decent hair fall away and Daisuke hops up to move to the front side of him. Ken makes a startled noise of protest as Daisuke flattens out his bangs over his eyes, but he doesn’t even get a chance to ask what the other boy is doing before Daisuke chops his bangs off. Ken barely has time to contemplate how terrible he must look when there’s footsteps coming down the stairs into the room. He looks up to see Izumi coming down the stairs with a bundle of clothes in his arms as Daisuke starts picking up the pile of hair on the ground.

Izumi looks at Ken and drops everything in his arms.

“Oh my god, what did you _do_ to him Daisuke!?” He cries, instinctively knowing the cause of the disaster. He scrambles to pick up his load again and hurries down the steps.

“Oh, come on! I didn’t do _that_ badly!” Daisuke whines indignantly.

“It looks like if Iori had a run in with a weedwacker.” Koushiro says.

“...It’ll look nice once it grows out again.” Daisuke refutes lamely.

“Yeah, maybe. But now poor Ichijouji has to deal with this mess!” Izumi says, giving Ken a sympathetic look.

“Well then gimme the scissors and I can fix it!” Daisuke demands.

“Actually, I couldn’t get any. So he’s going to be stuck like this.“ Izumi explains, giving Ken a consoling pat on the shoulder. “That’s rough, buddy.” 

“Well I’d say my hairdressing skills might just be expert level in comparison to your fashion sense, Koushiro.” Daisuke retorts, gesturing to the pile of clothing that looks just as terrible as the things Ken had received before.

“My clothes are fine!” Izumi cries indignantly.

“No, I think he’s right on that one.” Ken says.

“ _You_ be quiet, you have no room to talk about fashion sense, Kaiser.” Izumi snaps. Daisuke bursts into laughter. Ken starts laughing along too, though he feels a weird pang in his chest. Izumi just rolls his eyes before turning to his partner in the corner of the room.

“I got you your old disguise.” He says, reaching down to grab a jacket out of the pile. Tentomon looks almost excited for whatever reason.

“Ichijouji, where’s my hat?” Izumi asks as he starts pulling the jacket over top of Tentomon’s bizarre limbs.

“The ugly yellow one? I think I threw it somewhere around here.” Ken responds, still chuckling as he looks around to find it. 

“I got it!” Chibimon yells proudly as he drags the hat over to Izumi.

“Thank you. And it isn’t ugly.” Izumi says, shooting a quick glare in Ken’s direction as he plops the hat over Tentomon’s head.

“Right, just like that disguise is totally foolproof.” Ken mocks.

“I’ve walked all around Tokyo with him like this and I’ve yet to come across any issues.” Izumi says with a shrug.

“Seriously!?” Daisuke says, before promptly bursting into another fit of laughter.

“Yes, seriously. And we’re going now, my mom’s making all my favorites for lunch and I’m not going to be late because I stuck around to have my fashion choices ridiculed by you two.” He says, huffily walking up the stairs.

“I think she might’ve started letting you dress yourself a bit too soon!” Ken calls to him. He’s answered by the door being slammed shut. The two boys manage to hold their snickers in for a few seconds before bursting into laughter again. 

Ken feels eyes on him and looks over to see Wormmon looking very happy about something or other. He doesn’t question it and turns his attention back to Daisuke as the other boy starts telling more jokes about Izumi’s impeccable sense of fashion. The door suddenly opens again.

It’s Ishida, carrying what looks to be futons. He doesn’t even try to hide the glare he sends towards Ken. He tosses the bundles onto the floor carelessly.

“Our spare futons. I told my dad the story and he said you guys could keep them for as long as you needed them. Let’s go, Gabumon.” He says, and starts speedwalking back up the stairs again. Gabumon runs after him with a worried look on his face. 

The door slams shut once again, and the two boys find themselves unsure of what to do now that the cheeky atmosphere has been completely smothered. Ken decides to start setting the futons up. Daisuke starts quickly folding up the clothes. Wormmon has gone back to looking worried. He eventually scuttles over to Daisuke and starts helping him.

After who knows how long, the door opens again. Everyone looks up to see their new visitor. 

It turns out to be two visitors, both Sora and Kido. The look on Sora’s face alone causes the depressive atmosphere to get ten times thicker.

“I...got you guys some Maggie’s…” Kido says, putting on a weak smile as he holds up the bag. Sora says nothing, walking down the stairs and over to her partner. 

Kido gives them the bag of food and starts explaining the contents of the medical kit as they start devouring their respective portions. Wormmon is probably the only person who hears even a word of Kido’s lecture.

Ken finishes up his burger and finally decides to look over and see how Sora is doing. He can’t find her for a moment before he looks up and sees that she’s already heading out the door. He opens his mouth to say something but he can’t figure out what to say before the door shuts behind her. Kido whips around, evidently having not noticed her leaving. He stares for a few more seconds before pulling himself up to his feet and turning to head after her.

“I...should go follow her. C’mon, Gomamon.” He says, ushering his partner up into his arms before running up the stairs to follow Sora.

“Bye!” Daisuke calls after him. He doesn’t get an answer. Ken stares at the door for a while, trying to figure out what they’re supposed to do now. He’s actually kind of tired, now that he has the space to notice it. Jeez, it’s the middle of the day and too much crap has already happened. Who even knows what could be happening back in the desert right now? 

“I think I’m going to take a nap.” He tells Daisuke, flopping down onto the futons.

“Yeah, ok.” Daisuke responds. There’s clicking sounds and Ken thinks maybe the other boy is doing something on his d-terminal. He doesn’t bother to ask. The sound stops as Ken starts to fade into unconsciousness. It’s replaced by a scraping sound that Ken can’t manage to identify before he falls asleep completely.

He wakes up screaming a while later. He instinctively puts up a hand to wipe the nonexistent long hair out of his face as Wormmon comes up to him with a worried look in his eyes.

“You okay?” The question doesn’t come from Wormmon, but rather Daisuke. Ken turns to see the other boy propped up against the wall in the corner, stuffing something or other into his backpack. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He says. Wormmon very obviously doesn’t believe him, but he doesn’t say anything in objection. If Daisuke thinks he’s lying, he doesn’t show it.

Ken, not knowing what else to do, stands up and goes to sit next to Daisuke.

“What time is it, anyways?” He asks. Daisuke flips open his d-terminal to check and it’s then that Ken notices that Wormmon followed him over. He’s looking at Ken with those damned prying eyes and Ken has a very hard time pretending not to notice.

“It’s getting...late? I should go out and get us some dinner.” Daisuke answers. Ken finds himself leaning onto the other boy to avoid Wormmon’s gaze.

“...You don’t have to go out, I brought a bunch of food from Izumi’s yesterday.” He mutters, disliking the prospect of Daisuke going out. If that happened, then he’d have to talk to Wormmon.

“I have to go grab stuff from my room eventually anyways. I’ll be back fast, promise.” Daisuke explains as he stands up, slinging his bag over his shoulders.

“...Fine, then. Be quick though.” Ken mumbles. Daisuke gives him a thumbs up and leaves, stepping around the baby digimon who’ve returned to playing on the steps. Ken barely gets to watch him walk through the door before Wormmon is in front of him and giving him the look again.

“Are you sure you’re ok?” He asks. Ken tries to scoot away, forgetting that he’s trapped himself into a literal corner.

“I’m _fine_ , Wormmon.” He grumbles.

“I’m sorry...I’m just worried, since you’ve been having so many nightmares lately. Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me about?” He asks, staring up at Ken with pleading eyes. Ken almost caves.

“No. Nothing is wrong.” He mutters instead.

“Would you tell me if something was?” Wormmon questions, scooting up to force Ken into looking him in the eye.

“...Yeah.” Ken mutters. Wormmon can definitely tell that Ken is lying through his teeth, but for whatever reason he stops prying him about it. He gives Ken one last look before he scuttles over to the babies to check on them or something. Ken just stays where he is and starts counting the cracks in the wall. After he counts every last one of them, he thinks of a better idea.

He stands up and heads for the door.

“Where are _you_ going?” Yukimibotamon asks, eyeing him suspiciously as he walks past her.

“Well this isn’t the only room in this base. I’m going to go see if I can find anything anywhere else.” He explains. Wormmon yells at him to be careful as he steps out into the hall.

He starts with one of the rooms that had a bunch of boxes in it. The boxes contain nothing and a lot of bugs, though he thinks he sees some leftover food scraps lying at the bottom in some of them. So these held food before?...Could bugs really eat that much? He supposes that they must’ve already been almost empty. This digimon’s army had been rather big, right? So that was probably it. He wonders what they’d been planning to do when they ran out of food.

The next room is empty and annoyingly meticulous. He turns to leave, and almost does before he spots something out of place in the corner. He walks over to find a slightly uprooted tile. How very inconspicuous. He reaches down and picks the tile up, revealing a hole. Not wanting to just drop himself into a bottomless pit, he turns the tile on its side and drops it in. It barely falls before Ken hears it clunk on the bottom. Ok, so it’s not deep. Just really dark.

He doesn’t really feel compelled to drop himself into a dark hole, though. So he just makes a note of it and leaves the room. 

The other rooms don’t seem to hold anything of interest, either. There’s a missing tile in one of the ceilings though. 

When he comes to the first door that has a wall behind it, he stares at it for a bit, trying to see if there’s any sort of mechanism or something he’s just not seeing. He figures out exactly nothing. Reluctantly, he heads back to the main room.

“Did’ya find anything?” Chibimon asks him, not seeming to actually care as he continues to bounce up and down the stairs.

“Not anything particularly useful, no.” Ken answers. He sits back down onto the futon and flops onto his back, staring at the ceiling. Daisuke rejoins the scene minutes later, carrying yet another bag of fast food. Well aren’t they so very great at taking care of their health? He drops something on the floor for the babies before coming over and plopping down next to Ken.

“Did you get the things you wanted?” Ken asks as Daisuke hands him his portion of the meal.

“Yup!” Daisuke says, not providing any further details on the items before grabbing his own food. “What’d you get up to while I was gone?”

“I looked around the base a bit. Not much. Found a hole or something, but it was too dark for me to try exploring it. Still can’t figure out what the deal is with those wall-doors.” Ken summarizes.

“Eh, maybe he was just a weirdo.” Daisuke says with a mouth stuffed full of food.

“No, there must be something going on with that. I’m sure I’ll figure out eventually.” Ken replies. Daisuke just shrugs.

He eventually finishes his food and starts talking about something that his sister said when he stopped by the apartment. He talks about all the dumb stuff she said and then suddenly starts talking about the news for some reason. Ken thinks it’s just another one of Daisuke’s weird mental leaps before he suddenly starts saying that the other kids have been reported missing. It’s so casual that it takes a few seconds for Ken to even process it. Daisuke has already switched topics again by the time he’s worked the statement through his system enough to form a proper response. 

But he doesn’t know to get Daisuke to rewind and let him address it, so he ends up just letting it float over him with the rest of the nonsense Daisuke is saying. He’s almost happy that he doesn’t have to think about it that much. There’s already too much to think about.

Eventually, Daisuke stops rambling and yells at the digimon to come in for bed. The babies whine a bit before begrudgingly hopping over.

Ken’s not sure how he’s supposed to orient himself in order to accommodate all the digimon, and he honestly doesn’t care. He flops down with an arm over Daisuke and leaves it at that. 

He shuts his eyes and hopes he’ll get a better sleep this time around.


	9. Friendly Discussion

It takes Ken a day at most to realize that being the good guy isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world. Or maybe it’s just being a chosen child in particular that’s harder than it should be. Probably because of how much he messed up the digital world himself.

Part of the problem often comes from digimon not wanting to let him anywhere near the areas that need helping. Veemon has pointed out that this could probably be remedied at least somewhat by taking off his dictatorly uniform. Which is probably actually correct, but Ken ignores him anyways.

Another point of issue is the seemingly infinite mountain of maintenance necessary to get the digital world back into working order. And with a gigantic trail of burnt down villages to follow, they have their work pretty much cut out for them.

He has no idea how or when they’re actually going to go after the source of that destruction, but nobody has brought it up yet and he doesn’t really want to do it himself. They’ll get there when they get there, or something like that. 

It’s a pain to try and worry about every little weird thing, so he mostly doesn’t think about any of it and allows himself to be dragged along by the strange, silly person known as Daisuke, not even bothering to try and dissect him anymore.

Ken finds that a lot of weird behavior that could be considered worrying can usually just be marked down under “Daisuke being Daisuke”. It probably should take up a bit more of his concern, but Ken can’t really be bothered to try and care about the endless amount of strangeness that Daisuke practically emanates.

Ken pretty much forgets about the other older chosen, seeing as the only one who’s ever around is Izumi. Kido stopped by every once and a while at first, but even those checkups had eventually come to a halt. 

So when it’s announced that all of the older chosen will be coming to the base for a group meetup, Ken is taken by surprise. 

Especially when he hears that Yagami will be coming along. It’s awful, but Ken sort of had this impression that Yagami was beyond repair. He supposes this is a good development though. Probably.

Soon enough, the older kids start showing up at the base. Ken says hello to none of them. He sort of wishes Daisuke wasn’t sitting directly next to him, since the other boy _does_ bother to say hello and Ken honestly doesn’t want anyone to even see that he’s there. He doesn’t even want to be holding this meeting in the first place. Why do they have to be doing this again?

Yagami enters the room, with Takenouchi right beside him. She gives him a brief pat on the shoulder before walking away to go talk to Ishida. Yagami heads over to the wall and slides down onto the floor, curling up into a ball. Ken could almost swear that he’s looking at a completely different person than the one he was at least vaguely familiar with. His hair somehow looks even more of an overgrown disheveled mess than normal, and if he’s eaten a single thing since the last time Ken saw him, he certainly doesn’t show it. He looks like he could crumble if you touched him the wrong way. 

Ken’s attention is pulled away by Izumi’s sudden decision to start up the meeting. “Alright everyone, let’s go over what’s been going on, to get everyone up to date. Then, we can move on to talking about what we should do next.” He says, getting up on the stairs to better keep the group’s attention, as Yagami scoots away from the wall to have a better view.

“First off, we haven’t determined much in regards to the body of water that’s been steadily growing in the desert. As far as I can tell, it doesn’t pose any significant threat, but the growth of it brings me to worry about the possible need to evacuate the area. We can’t discern where the water is going to go as of right now, though…” 

Nobody has anything to say about that, so Izumi keeps going. “Daisuke and Ichijouji have been helping rebuild random areas of the digital world...though they’ve had a few problems.”

“Problems?” Ishida asks, shooting a blatantly suspicious glare in Ken’s direction.

“Yeah, because everyone keeps ganging up on Ken.” Daisuke says, giving Ishida a gigantic smile. Ishida stares at Daisuke for a few seconds before rolling his eyes and turning away from the younger boys. Izumi waits for a long couple of moments before he finally says something again.

“So...does anyone have any ideas as to what we should do from here? Any questions?” He asks. At first, he isn’t answered, and he opens his mouth to say something else. But whatever it was going to be isn’t said because Yagami suddenly raises his hand. Everybody just stares with their mouths gaping open like fish for a while before Izumi regains his senses again.

“Uh...what is it you’d like to say, Taichi?” He asks quietly.

“Ah, well...I think we should quit.” Yagami says. Nobody knows how to answer that.

“P-pardon? Taichi, what are you saying?” Izumi asks, managing to sound rather calm despite the plainly horrified way he looks at his leader.

“...We can’t do this anymore. It’s too dangerous. We ought to quit before anyone else gets hurt.” Yagami responds calmly.

And with those words, a bomb goes off.

Before Ken can even process what’s happening, Yagami has been hit in the face and picked up by the collar, being shaken back and forth by Ishida. There’s a lot of screaming and Ken is quickly getting a headache but more importantly Wormmon looks scared out of his mind. And so it clicks that Ken needs to do something.

He stands up and grabs onto Ishida’s arm without so much as a plan. Opening his mouth to say something is about as far as he gets, before Ishida lets his other hand free and slams Ken onto the floor.

Ken’s vision spins as he vaguely sees Daisuke rushing over to him. He thinks the other boy might be is saying something but he can’t hear it over the ringing in his ears.

The world eventually stops spinning enough for Ken to realize that there are tears in his eyes. He quickly tries to lift a hand up and rectify the situation. He misses quite a few times as it dully registers that Ishida is screaming at Yagami again. Or maybe someone is yelling at him to stop. He can’t tell which. Daisuke helps prop him up and Ken just allows himself to be supported as the dust settles in his head and things slowly start getting clear again. Ken realizes with shock that Yagami is talking again, too.

“They’re just little kids, Yamato...they shouldn’t be putting their lives on the line. None of us should. This has gone too far...” Yagami argues quietly.

“ _Little kids!?_ Taichi, do you remember how tiny Takeru and Hikari were the first time we had to go save the world!?” Ishida shouts.

“And how much good did that do them!?” Yagami chokes. Ken can practically see Ishida’s brain come reeling to a stop. He almost looks as though he might be about to step down, but at the last second he rears up again, looking even more furious than before. Out of the corner of his eye, Ken sees something like a flinch. He turns to see Wormmon, who’s clearly only getting worse with the passage of time. Damn it. 

“So what, you want to just give up on everything!?” Ishida yells with a near murderous look in his eyes. Ken almost wants to shrink up into a ball as he watches the older boy shake Yagami with a wild sort of desperation. Instead, he slowly moves up to Wormmon and waves a hand in front of the digimon’s wide eyed stare. Wormmon flinches back and turns to look at him with a confused, glazed over look on his face.

“Hey...I’m right here, i-it’s ok…” Ken whispers, not entirely sure what he’s supposed to be doing. Wormmon continues to stare at him for a second, and his eyes seem to clear up a tiny bit before he abruptly leaps into Ken’s lap. What?... _What?_

“It’d be...for the best. This has gone on long enough. We need to stop this now, before one of them gets hurt again.” Yagami says from off to the side. Ken is only half listening, too busy trying to figure out how he ended up with Wormmon in his lap and what the hell he’s supposed to do about it. He shouldn’t touch him, right? So does he just...not move?

“ _What the hell kind of sense does that make!?_ ” shouts Ishida. Wormmon buries himself into Ken’s shirt, shaking violently. Ken hasn’t the slightest idea of what to do. He looks over at Daisuke helplessly, but it turns out that the other boy is already attempting to break up the fight, too preoccupied to save Ken.

“Yamato, can you please cut it-” He attempts to say.

“Quit being a coward! You’re stronger than this, Taichi!” Ishida exclaims over Daisuke, seemingly not even noticing that he’s there.

“Hey, stop-”

“Did Hikari die for you to just run away and hide like some kind of _pathetic-_ ”

“ _Yamato._ ” Daisuke hollers, finally catching the older boy’s attention. In an extremely bad way.

“Shut up, Daisuke.” Ishida snarls. 

“No.” Daisuke says firmly. “Cut it out. Now.”

Ishida takes a swing at him. Daisuke ducks out of the way easily and backs up, out of Ishida’s reach. The larger boy growls and takes a lunge at him, only to be stopped by Kido of all people, desperately holding him back with both arms.

“What do you think you’re doing, Yamato!? He’s in a cast!” Kido cries. Ken wonders if the injury is seriously the only complaint Kido has with Ishida punching someone much younger and smaller than him.

“Like I care! He’s a spoiled, cocky little brat and he needs to be taught a lesson!” Ishida claims. Ken feels his blood boiling. _Spoiled?_ Who does he think he is!? He hasn’t lifted a finger to help them for weeks, and now he’s calling _Daisuke_ spoiled!? Ken might’ve stood up and given Ishida a piece of his mind right then, if he didn’t remember that he still had Wormmon in his lap. 

“That’s enough, Yama.” Takenouchi snaps, stepping right up to Ishida with a glare that could kill twenty. Ishida looks more baffled than intimidated, though. “Cut it out now or so help me, I’m going to drag you out of here by the ear.”

“Wha-Sora!? Why are you taking _his_ side!?” He exclaims, gesturing at Daisuke with plain, scathing hatred. The brothers are incredibly similar when they’re angry, and Ken decidedly hates it.

“Because he’s acting like a sane person, and right now you aren’t.” Takenouchi says with an ice cold composure.

“The hell does that mean!? Wait-don’t tell me you actually think Taichi is right!” Ishida exclaims.

“No, I don’t. But at least Taichi is making his point without yelling or hitting anyone.”

Ishida goes quiet, and for a second Ken thinks that Takenouchi actually got through to him. It almost surprises him when he’s suddenly given the death glare of the century. Wormmon whimpers and shrivels up even further into Ken’s lap as Ishida turns to shoot an even worse look at Daisuke. Takenouchi is about to say something again when he shoves past her and storms up the stairs.

“Hey-” She shouts, but the door slams shut before she can get another word in.

There’s a long, painful silence.

Then Takenouchi whips around and rips a pillow off of the futons. Before Ken can guess what she’s doing she stuffs her face into it and screams. Izumi takes a step towards her, only to flinch back upon seeing her hurl the pillow at the wall.

“Sora, maybe you should calm down…” Kido advises quietly. He shuts up immediately upon seeing Takenouchi direct her master death-glare at him.

“Calm down? _I_ need to calm down? Jou. I have been keeping Yamato from commiting murder for weeks now, and all while making sure our dear leader doesn’t _die_ from starvation! I think I’m allowed to be a little bit _stressed the hell out._ ” She snaps.

“Ok, but still,” Jou starts.

“And what exactly have you been doing to help anyone this whole time!? At least Koushiro has been doing _something_ for the digital world!”

Kido doesn’t have anything to say to that. After a small moment, Takenouchi’s glare softens into something like guilt.

“...Sorry. You didn’t deserve that.” She says with a sigh. 

“No...no, you’re right. I should be trying harder to make the time to help out. It’s not fair to you or to everyone else. I’ll figure something out.” Kido mutters.

“No, don’t worry about it. It’s...where did Taichi go?” 

Everyone looks around the room. There’s no sign of Yagami anywhere. 

Takenouchi is the first to burst out yelling and run out of the room. Izumi and Kido aren’t far behind her. Daisuke gives him a thumbs up and runs off after them before Ken has a chance to tell him to stop. And so, Ken finds himself stuck sitting in the middle of the floor with Wormmon trembling in his arms.

“Keeeen, is Wormmon ok?” Chibimon asks, having not had the leg size necessary to run off after his partner.

“...I doubt it.” Ken mutters.

“Then why don’t you hug him?” Nyaromon questions, almost as if accusing Ken for not doing so.

“He doesn’t like it when I touch him. It makes him more upset.” Ken simplifies. Nyaromon’s only response is to glare. Ken glares back. Would it kill this stupid cat to be amicable for once? He’s trying his best here.

“Ok! I’ll hug him then!” Chibimon declares, and without a chance to object Ken has yet another digimon in his lap.

“Good idea, Chibi!” Nyaromon says, and gives Ken a spiteful smirk before leaping onto him. Damn it all. Why does he always end up being the one stuck taking care of all the digimon anyways? He’s the least equipped for this. He’s less than a negative amount of equipped for this. Why isn’t someone friendly getting buried in digimon, like Daisuke or something?

Ken is so wound up in his own internal whining that he doesn’t even notice that the presence of Chibimon legitimately seems to be helping Wormmon calm down. That, and he’s distracted by Nyaromon pouncing up and down on the worst parts of his lap and generally trying to make the experience as painful as she can.

Eventually, Ken can’t take it anymore and picks Nyaromon up off of his lap.

“Cut. It. Out.” Ken hisses.

“No! Lemme go!” the little digimon whines as she squirms around in Ken’s grasp.

“Then stop being such a nuisance.” He snaps.

Nyaromon’s following response is to bite into Ken’s hand. The resulting scream causes both Wormmon and Chibimon to bound out of his lap in alarm. Wormmon’s expression remains cloudy as Ken flails about, trying to shake off the tiny digimon chomping into his skin.

At a safe low point in Ken’s rapid arm swinging, Nyaromon drops herself off onto the ground and rapidly starts spitting blood and the like onto the ground.

“Phleh, gross! Bad guy blood. I’m probably cursed now or something.” She groans.

“Wha-You’re the one who _bit my hand_ , genius!” Ken sputters.

“You’re the one who deserves to get bit, bad guy!” Nyaromon retorts childishly. Ken doesn’t know why, but for some reason his chest starts to feel weird.

“I’ve been _trying_ to be nice to you for _weeks_ , you little brat. What more do you even want from me!?” He asks indignantly as he starts moving to grab the medical kit.

“Go die!” She yells.

“Nice thing to say, miss heroine.” Ken grumbles, giving up on any chance of getting through to the annoying little thing and turning his attention to his damaged hand. She sputters for a second or two, but doesn’t say anything more as Ken starts mindlessly bandaging himself.

“Ken, are you ok?” The sudden question causes Ken to jump out of his skin. His attention is then brought onto a worried looking Wormmon. 

Right. Wormmon. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Ken assures, before thinking about it for a second and realizing that that’s probably not the thing he should be saying. 

“...Are _you_ ok?”

Wormmon looks incredibly taken aback, but gives Ken a nod anyways. Ok...that’s good. Ken honestly isn’t sure if he should take Wormmon at his word, but whatever. If he says he’s fine, then he’s fine.

Ken shrugs it off and goes back to wrapping up his hand. He’s pretty much done by the time Daisuke comes back through the door looking out of breath and vaguely shaken. Ken doesn’t have to ask why before Daisuke drops the news himself.

“We can’t find Taichi anywhere.”


	10. The Walls Of Accidental Creation

Ken hates leaving the underground safety of the base for any reason at all and, since his return to earth, has never done so unaccompanied.

Yagami’s disappearance changes this, and for that Ken is absolutely miserable. But they have to cover as much ground as possible, so he doesn’t get to argue against it. Leaving him stuck, wandering the streets in his less than ideal disguise, looking around to try and find their runaway.

Speaking of runaways. There are a lot of pictures of him up and around. Which really doesn’t help him feel any less anxious.

He also sees the posters for the other kids. Inoue’s posters have three different photos of her, all clearly picked out of family albums or something similar. One has her looking extremely tousled, likely included with the intent of making her more findable in a disguise. Both she and Hida are grinning from ear to ear on every paper. In stark contrast, Ken’s poster has a picture from some commercial, with a comparatively weak sense of emotion. Though he can’t imagine even that much would be necessary for anyone to be able to remember what Ichijouji Ken looks like. 

He also can’t remember the last time either of his parents pointed a camera at him.

...He shouldn’t be thinking about this, dammit. He’s supposed to be on an important person hunt here. This stuff doesn’t matter anymore.

And so Ken goes on walking, trying to cast all his annoying crappy feelings away as much as possible to focus on the mission at hand. He catches a glance at his own face in a passing window display.

God, his hair really does look like shit.

Oh well, looking like the human embodiment of a trainwreck means less chance of being discovered. But while that’s certainly a pleasant thought, it doesn’t help much on the front of helping locate Yagami. How far can a malnourished person even get? 

Hopefully he hasn’t collapsed anywhere. And hopefully Ken isn’t the one to locate him if he has. He does _not_ want the extra attention brought on by lugging an unconscious teenager around.

He wanders up and down the streets for another twenty minutes without a hint of progress. Of course, he can’t really get any leads since that would involve alerting strangers to his existence in order to ask questions. Clearly, not on the table. So if Yagami actually is in his area, then Ken’s just going to have to find him without anything to help him.

You’d think it’d be easy to find a giant mound of hair with a body attached to it.

But as much as Ken searches and searches, nothing comes up. At one point he thinks he sees the elusive boy around the waterfront, but by the time he runs over to investigate the maybe-Yagami person is already gone. This is ridiculous.

He doesn’t want to be here, dammit. He isn’t sure where he wants to be, but it’s not here.

After far too long a time, Ken’s d-terminal goes off.

_Everyone, I found Taichi’s digivice signal in the digital world. Return to the base asap. -Koushiro_ , the message reads.

Ken is incredibly confused. But he’s not going to keep running aimlessly around the city if there’s even a chance that Izumi could be right, so he hurries off back to the base again. He certainly hopes this is actually something and not just Izumi going insane.

Soon enough, he arrives back at the base, feeling a wave of relaxation wash over him upon reentering the familiar walls. He’s not entirely sure where from, whether it be the comfort of knowing that he’s safe from the world and by extension the police, or just that thing that you’re supposed to feel whenever you get home.

That sense of calmness dissipates when he heads into the main room and finds Izumi looking incredibly stressed about something. He admittedly hasn’t known Izumi for very long, but a few weeks is long enough to know that Izumi looking worried can only be something terrible.

“What’s this about Yagami’s digivice?” Ken asks, trying to keep his voice as calm as he can. Izumi jerks, as thought he hadn’t even noticed Ken’s entrance. Definitely not a good sign.

Izumi glances anxiously back and forth between his laptop and Ken, deliberating what to say. “...I’ll explain...things...when everyone gets back.” He eventually says. Ken doesn’t particularly feel like trying to pry about it, especially when Izumi seems a bit touchy, so he just flops unceremoniously onto the futons and starts staring at the ceiling.

He’s lost count of the ceiling cracks about five times before Takenouchi shows up. He doesn’t really say anything as she starts yelling at Izumi for an explanation, or after he calms her down enough to go over the same thing he’d told Ken. Ken isn’t sure what he could be saying, or if he even should at all. Half the time it feels like he should just keep his mouth taped shut around these people.

Even so, Ken quickly gets tired of listening to Takenouchi pace back and forth around the room, and so Kido and Daisuke’s arrival feels like the greatest thing in the world. 

Takenouchi immediately starts badgering Izumi to start explaining again, not giving Daisuke even a second to say whatever it was he opened his mouth to say. Once again, Izumi starts carefully calculating his words. It takes him a long time to even open his mouth.

“Ah, well...you see, it’s like...um. Taichi’s digivice signal showed up around the flooded area. I managed to get a video feed and well, I could definitely see him there. But then…” He pauses, staring at the ceiling like he wants it to give him an answer.

“ _But?_ ” Takenouchi urges impatiently.

“But...then the video started becoming...blurry and blotchy. I saw a large clump of red near Taichi before it cut out entirely. His digivice signal became completely untraceable after that point.” Izumi explains slowly. Nobody is really sure what to say to that, though Daisuke appears to have lost a significant amount of blood in his face. Maybe it’s the “red” part that’s freaking him out. That would make sense. For Daisuke at least. 

It’s making Ken feel pretty damn uneasy himself.

“I think we should, um...go investigate.” Izumi suggests, swallowing.

Nobody disagrees. They all head out towards the location in silence. The...lake comes into view soon enough, motionless and dead. It looks entirely undisturbed, and Ken wonders for the millionth time if maybe Izumi just got something wrong. 

Kido then notices footprints. Fine, nevermind then.

They follow the footprints until they abruptly cease several meters from the shoreline. They don’t appear to pick up anywhere else. That’s not...how that’s supposed to _work_.

But, as always, the digital world doesn’t give a single damn whether or not Ken thinks it’s confusing.

They make it to the edge of the water. Ken looks over the flat expanse, seeing nothing that would even resemble a clue. Takenouchi starts screaming for Yagami to come out, and Ken can’t even begin to fathom why she thinks that’s going to work. Then, Daisuke suddenly points out bubbles on the water’s surface.

The thing that comes out is in no way Yagami. At least, Ken hopes to god that it isn’t. Ken’s not even entirely sure what it is he’s supposed to be looking at. A...fish...man? No, there aren’t any man parts. At least, Ken doesn’t _think_ so. His brain can’t seem to fully process the shape of it. It’s as though it’s...flat. The whole thing looks like it’s made of shadows, as strange as that thought is, and as such the absence of light does nothing to help define the shape of it. The creature barely feels like a physical object, not something grounded on any sort of plane. Ken wants to turn and run. 

But for some god forsaken reason, the group decides to stay completely put as the thing walks towards them. Takenouchi is the first person to do something, though it’s nothing that Ken or anyone would want her to do. 

She marches right up to the damn thing.

“...Have you seen a boy around here? He’s a bit taller than me...he has big, poofy brown hair like this.” She explains, miming out Yagami’s shape for this something or other. Unbelievably, it nods.

“Where is he!?” Takenouchi asks instantly. Ken prays to every available deity that the thing isn’t actually capable of speech. His efforts get him nothing.

“A lady...in red. Took...him away somewhere.” It slurs, in an uncanny, halting inflection. Ken wants to curl up under a rock and die, and the rest of the boys seem to be carrying a similar sentiment on their faces. Takenouchi has other ideas, though.

“What are you talking about!? This is serious, don’t give me any weird riddlely crap! Where is Taichi!?” She snaps. The thing gives off the impression of being confused somehow, despite not making any noticable change in body language. Takenouchi reaches out to grab it, and the thing dissipates into thin air as though it hadn’t actually been there at all.

Takenouchi stays locked in position, hand still outreached as though she can’t quite comprehend that the object isn’t there anymore.

Once again, nobody knows what the hell they should do.

Eventually, they come to the conclusion to treat this like a kidnapping. It’s pretty much the only thing they can think of. Some woman kidnapped Yagami and maybe did something to stop Izumi from seeing it. Or something like that. There aren’t any other clues, so that’s just what they’ll have to assume for now, and ask around to see if they can find out anything from the digimon.

Two weeks later, they still haven’t found anything. Aside from a gigantic increase in hostile digimon. The destruction of which certainly doesn’t do their reputation any favors.

Apparently, a number of the chosen’s allies have informed Izumi that they refuse to cooperate with them anymore unless the younger boys are disposed of. In response, Izumi has simply told the two of them to “tone it down a bit”.

Neither of them know what they’re supposed to do about that. They’re already falling behind as is. Running away or just letting the things wreck all their efforts would be immensely counter productive. Killing them is pretty much the only thing they can do.

Wormmon and Veemon have both expressed a certain amount of disdain for this, but they have yet to come up with a better idea. 

During a certain incident, an enemy digimon knocked a giant chunk of rubble off of a cliff, directly over Daisuke’s very crackable head. That’s how Exveemon was born. 

He’s notably stronger than either of his other forms, so it’s an agreeable outcome no matter how terrifying the initial incident had been. Ken refuses to admit how much that’d scared him though. Even if everyone had heard him scream. Nope, never happened.

Though Izumi is almost always in charge of their missions, Takenouchi has recently picked up the habit of bursting into the base, stressed and insisting that it’s his damn turn to go deal with Ishida. Surprisingly, those days end up being the most productive. Takenouchi is too close to snapping to care that much about what they do, and never interrupts progress to tell them off or give a long unnecessary explanation of something that they either can’t deal with now anyways or could’ve been explained later. 

It feels a little bit like they’re taking advantage of her or something but...it’s not doing any harm, probably. And they’re making progress, so it’s a good thing. Daisuke does a better job convincing himself of that than Ken does. Maybe just because he’s already lost it or something.

Or maybe because Ken just has too much time to think about things. With Daisuke having long since returned to school, a gigantic chunk of the day can be devoted to overthinking everything. It’s not like there’s anything else to do. Izumi sometimes drops off some findings for Ken to examine, but none of it is ever really important and so he usually just doesn’t bother with it.

The disappearance of… _both_ Yagamis has been reported to the police. Even if they do in fact know what happened to their daughter, the Mr. and Mrs. can’t really report one kid and not the other. 

He only heard about this because of Chibimon, who also happened to report that Daisuke had ended up vomiting after seeing Hikari’s picture pinned to the school board. Another thing he heard from Chibimon, is that some kids at school have been spreading rumors about Daisuke, regarding his entire friend group’s disappearance. 

He’s not sure how to approach Daisuke about any of these things.

He should figure something out, sooner or later. Daisuke is his friend. His stupid, probably crazy friend. And looking out for one another is part of what friends do, or something like that. At the very least, the older chosen seems to exemplify this philosophy, so there’s probably at least some amount of weight to it. Putting aside the fact that they somehow managed to lose an entire human being.

And so one day he wakes up and decides that today is the day he’ll talk to Daisuke about it. Daisuke leaves for school, giving Ken an entire day to psych himself up. He can do this. He can totally do this. He goes over how he’ll start, how he’ll react when Daisuke tries to shut him down, every little thing he can think of to plan this out. On several occasions, Nyaromon complains about him pacing back and forth or tells him to stop mumbling to himself like a maniac. Why can’t she just go stay in the digital world like the other digimon?

Far too quickly, Daisuke arrives home. Ken immediately feels a desire to throw his plan out the window and forget about the whole thing.

...No, screw that. He’s not going to back down from Daisuke of all people out of _fear_. He can do this. He can be a good friend. He can be the best goddamn friend ever, just watch him. 

Only a very minimal part of Ken’s brain actually agrees with this sentiment for any more than a second, but he swallows his apprehension anyways.

“Daisuke, I want to talk to you about something.” There, it’s out now. Ken can’t drop this now. He’s going to do this.

“Oh yeah? What’s up?” Daisuke responds nonchalantly, plopping down on the floor in front of him.

“...They’re spreading rumors about you at school, right?” Ken asks, deciding to start with the smaller thing. Immediately, he can feel Daisuke boring a hole into his skull, despite the boy’s efforts to look unfazed. He stares at Ken like that for a long, long time. Eventually, he lets out a sigh.

“You can’t believe everything Chibimon says, y’know.” He says dismissively.

“Honestly, I trust Chibimon’s word more than yours.” Ken snaps. He had already been anticipating this sort of response, but it ticks him off anyways.

“You wound me.” Daisuke laughs.

“Oh shut up. Would you actually talk to me for once?” Ken grumbles, too irritated to bother trying to be subtle.

“I thought you told me to shut up?” Daisuke retorts with a chuckle.

“Quit trying to derail the conversation, it’s not going to work.” Ken tells him. Daisuke just lets out an airy, tired laugh and stands up to go unpack his stuff. For a few moments, Ken feels genuinely angry enough that he almost allows Daisuke to get away with dropping the conversation right there.

Wait, no, that’s the exact thing he was supposed to make sure Daisuke _didn’t_ do, dammit. He can’t just...back down. This has gone on for way too long. Months. He’s sick of this. He can’t take it anymore. Daisuke is the one who dragged him kicking and screaming into this dumb friendship thing and Ken is going to do his part in that whether he likes it or not.

He’s sick of “I’m fine.” He’s not going to take this crap anymore.

But despite his newfound determination, Ken has no damn clue how he’s supposed to go about anything. He wishes he had a manual on all the things that normal people are supposed to be capable of doing. This is stupid.

...With things like friendship, you’re just supposed to speak from the heart, right? 

Ken stares over at Daisuke, repacking his bags, probably already shrugging off the incident without a second of consideration. Without his brain’s input, he gets up and walks over to Daisuke. 

Daisuke turns around without Ken having to do anything, so the next move in Ken’s line of action is to punch Daisuke in the face.

Daisuke’s face looks more shocked than hurt, having clearly not expected the punch. It’s definitely going to leave a bruise, though. Daisuke turns to look at him, mouth wide open but unable to formulate a response.

“Talk. To. Me.” Ken grates out, grabbing onto Daisuke with far too tight a grip.

“...Let go, Ken.” Daisuke mutters, trying and failing to keep his growing anger under wraps.

“No. Tell me what’s wrong, you _asshole_.” Ken demands.

“Besides the fact that you just punched me in the face?” Daisuke asks with scathing sarcasm.

“Yes, Daisuke. Besides the fact that I just punched you in the face.” Ken responds through gritted teeth. Daisuke glares at him for a full minute.

“Alrighty then: all my best friends are dead and I can’t tell anyone why, Yamato chucked a rock at me yesterday, the thing that killed all my friends is still killing things right now and we might not ever be able to stop it from killing things, my role model was kidnapped and might be dead, _we_ might die. Let’s see, is there anything else I forgot to put on the list _your majesty_?” Daisuke snaps. An instant after finishing, he visibly regrets having said anything. He starts glancing around and fidgeting with something in his pocket, clearly trying to find a way out. Nope, he said it. He’s not getting out now.

“See, that wasn’t so hard, now was it? Let’s try doing that a bit more often, huh?” Ken says. Daisuke tries to glare a knife into his skull. “Ok, now let’s talk about Yamato chucking a rock at you. That sounds kind of important. Any particular reason you didn’t want to tell me about that?”

“I hate you.” Daisuke grumbles.

“Is that the reason or just a thing you’re saying because you don’t want to answer?” Ken asks. Daisuke responds by kicking Ken in the shin. Ken cries out in pain, but the presumably intended effect of loosening Ken’s grip isn’t achieved, instead causing him to dig his fingers in even more. Daisuke tries to wriggle away anyways, managing to get out of Ken’s grasp for a moment before Ken snaps back into action and grabs his arm.

“Oh _hell no_ , you aren’t running away from me. We are going to sit down and talk about our feelings like normal goddamn people, and it’ll probably be a miserable experience for the both of us, but for the love of god we are going to do this. Do you _understand_ me, Motomiya? Do I make myself clear!?” Ken asks, enraged and up to his waist in annoyance. He doesn’t even give Daisuke a chance to say no before he drags the other boy over to the futon and shoves him down. He quickly gets down himself in order to keep Daisuke pinned to the spot.

“It’s time for a heart to heart, _dearest friend_.” Ken says with a mock-sweetness that causes Daisuke to emit a groan of almost physical pain. They’re doing this. Ken won’t let them not do this. 

If there’s one single commonality that can be drawn between the two of them, it’s the ability to be insufferably stubborn.


	11. Three Words You Won't Live Up To

“Do we really have to do this, Ken?”

“Well, we _wouldn’t_ have to if you actually told me when things happened.” Ken explains with annoyance.

“...Then can I get out of this if I promise to always tell you everything from now on?” Daisuke bargains. A tempting offer, truly. If only Ken was capable of taking Daisuke at his word.

“You did this to yourself, Motomiya.” Ken says firmly. Daisuke grubbles something incoherent and glares at the ceiling. Ken can’t really tell whether he’s going to get an answer or if he’s being ignored. Probably the latter. He wouldn’t put it past Daisuke to try and get out of this by boring Ken to death.

And so, things quickly become incredibly quiet. Neither of them say anything. Nothing else makes any sound. Ken doesn’t even _know_ where Nyaromon is, and nothing else can. So it’s quiet. Quiet to the point of being able to hear Daisuke’s breathing. It sounds weirdly shallow. Is he dying or something?

“...Where do you want me to start?” Daisuke finally asks. 

“Well, why don’t we go back to that whole rock thing?” Ken suggests. Daisuke stares at him for a moment.

“And what if I were to say that I don’t want to go back to that rock thing?” He questions with feigned nicety.

“Why not?” Ken asks simply.

“Ken, I think I’ve already made it pretty clear that I don’t want to talk about this.” Daisuke says, still keeping his voice level and calm.

“Yet you’ve never explained why.” Ken retorts. Daisuke tries to answer this, but it comes out as a series of stutters as he fails to come up with a proper answer. “I-that’s...No, I’m...ugh.”

“So _is_ there an actual reason?” Ken asks amusedly. Daisuke actually seems to think this over a lot, his face scrunching up in concentration to the point that it looks painful.

“I guess...since there’s things I actually, really can’t tell you about, I just didn’t really think about whether or not I should tell you about anything else. Or...nevermind.” He cuts off suddenly.

“No, continue.” Ken pries. Daisuke tenses up at this, looking extremely pensive about something or other before slowly starting to mull it over. His shoulders unwind a bit as he come to his answer.

“I just didn’t think it was worth making you worry.” He grumbles. Ken turns this answer over in his head a few times. Ok, that seems plausible. Not rational, but definitely plausible as a thing that Daisuke would do. ‘Probably the truth’ isn’t quite the same as ‘not dumb’, though.

“Daisuke, you do realize that I worry a lot more about you hiding things from me than I do about those actual things, right?” Ken questions.

“Well I was sort of hoping that you wouldn’t find out. That was kind of the point?” Daisuke jokes.

“Yeah, but I did find out, without you telling me, and because of that I’m way more concerned about you than I would’ve been otherwise.” Ken explains. Daisuke makes a weird, strangled noise somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. “Yeah, ok. Point taken.”

“Also, what’s this about a thing you can’t tell me about?” Ken asks. Daisuke flinches and starts to chuckle nervously.

“Yeah I uh, I really can’t tell you. Like, actually. It’s not a big problem, it’s just that I can’t tell you about it. Or like, explain it to you.” Daisuke explains, transparently trying to undermine the problem with every word.

“Is there...a way we can _fix_ that?” Ken asks, not sure what kind of an angle he should be trying for.

“Nope, I just can’t tell you.” Daisuke says, so quickly that Ken can’t imagine that he’d actually considered the question. Whether the answer was out of stubborness or because he legitimately can’t tell Ken about it, he isn’t sure. He wonders if he’ll ever be able to be sure.

“Ok then. Well, if that was the only reason you never want to talk with me…” Ken trails off, giving Daisuke a pointed look. Daisuke shrivels up and starts trying to think of a new excuse.

“No, I...I don’t know. There are other reasons, I just don’t know how to...explain them that well.” He eventually says.

“Well, I don’t find that to be a viable excuse.” Ken says simply. Daisuke gives him a pleading, puppy dog eye look. “Get talking.”

Daisuke glares.

“...Fine.” He mutters in defeat. “Ok. Rock thing.”

“So, Yamato chucked a rock at me. He didn’t actually do anything else, he just threw the rock and left. Dunno what else you want me to say.” 

“How did that make you feel?” Ken prompts.

“I-I don’t...know? Annoyed? Confused? Sad?” Daisuke says.

“Sad?” Ken parrots.

“I said I don’t know ok!?” Daisuke snaps.

“Well then figure it out and explain it!” Ken yells back.

“Hey, why is it only ‘poke at Daisuke day’!? Why can’t it be ‘poke at Ken day’ too!?” Daisuke questions, emphasizing his point with a shove to Ken’s chest.

“Because I don’t constantly bottle things up and hide things!” Ken retorts. The look that crosses Daisuke’s face makes him wonder if he just made the worst mistake ever.

“ _Excuse me!?_ ” Daisuke shouts incredulously, pushing forward to get in Ken’s face. “Ichijouji, you are the ‘bottling things up’ _grand master_.”

“What! How!?” Ken cries.

“Let me answer that question by posing another question: when was the last time you cried?” Daisuke gives him a razor sharp look as he says this, and any snappy remark Ken might’ve had curls back up in his throat and dies.

“I-That’s. I. I don’t need to cry.” Is the best defense he can come up with.

“Really? Really, Ken? Really? _Really?_ ”

“Cut that out.”

“Ok then, Mr.I’m So Tough And Don’t Need To Express My Emotions. If you’ve got everything under control, what’s with the whole dancing around Wormmon thing?” Daisuke interrogates. Ken sputters, taken severely off guard by the unexpected question. Perhaps due to purposely avoiding that train of thought.

“I’m not...dancing around it.” He grumbles. Daisuke gives him a look that reads clearly as ‘you’re lying through your teeth right now and we both know it.’ Ken ignores that look and keeps talking. “I’m just...trying to take my time with it. It’s not that big of a deal, I’m just taking my time is all.”

“Riiiight. Ok, sure. Taking your time. Alright then, explain your chronic fear of human beings. You taking your time with that too?” Daisuke jabs. Ken weighs the pros and cons of trying to strangle him.

“Shut up.” Is the only retort he can come up with. “You’re trying to change the topic. Tell me why getting a rock chucked at your head made you sad.”

“Can I not just be sad for the rock?” Daisuke jokes. He doesn’t get a response. At least, not a verbal one. He laughs anxiously, idly scratching and toying with his wrists. “Ok, ok fiiiine. We’re coming back to Poke Ken Day, though.”

“It’s Poke Daisuke Day until I’m satisfied, got it?” Ken states adamantly, without at all considering the silliness of using Daisuke’s terminology.

“Yeah, yeah your highness, whatever you say.” Daisuke says sarcastically. Ken chuckles without thinking about it. He doesn’t even really notice that the little reminder isn’t as bothersome anymore.

“Less stalling, more talking.” He orders jokingly.

“Yeah, ok.” Daisuke concedes. “So like...I guess, yeah, I’m sad. Yamato seemed like a really awesome dude. And now he hates me because I fucked up and got his little brother killed.”

“Ok for one, I’m pretty sure he hates you because you’re siding with me and two, I’m pretty damn sure that was my fault.” Ken argues. Daisuke raises an eyebrow and just stares at him for a while.

“...Let’s just say it’s half and half. You made a sucky pet and I was a crappy leader. Deal?” Ken half wants to go ahead and agree and half wants to say something against that. He doesn’t know how to protest, though. So he just ends up nodding.

“Ok then, back to Ken poking.” Daisuke says with an unmistakable hint of glee in his voice.

“No, hold up. I’m not done with you yet.” Ken shouts. Daisuke groans and attempts to bury his face inside the floor. Ken gives him a light shove. “Come on now, stop that. It sounds like you’re having quite a few issues over that Takaishi issue, why don’t you tell me about that?”

“How about we pick a different topic? Like oh, I don’t know, literally anything else at all?” Daisuke pleads. Ken instantly wants to say ‘no’, but...pushing Daisuke would probably just make him start lying. And maybe if he was nice here, then Daisuke would return the favor during _his_ inevitable interrogation. So with that in mind, Ken looks up at the ceiling and tries to think of another question. Eventually, he cooks up something good.

“Tell me how you feel about that thing you’re hiding. You don’t have to tell me any details or whatever, just tell me how you feel about it.” Ken asks, thinking that a question like this could make it so that he doesn’t have to worry about the secret itself. However, the massive cringe that Daisuke makes causes him to wonder about how good this idea actually is. Daisuke doesn’t argue, though.

“Yeah, ok. So...how I...feel about it? I don’t really...Well, I certainly can’t imagine what the world would be like if things weren’t the way they are, I guess.” Daisuke says hesitantly, painstakingly slow as he thinks over every little word. “And I’m _glad_ that things can work the way they do but...I would be lying if I said the side effects weren’t annoying.”

Ken has to think about that for a while. As expected, he has no idea what on earth Daisuke could possibly be talking about.

“Ok so, if it’s these ‘side effects’ that are bugging you, then focus on how you feel about that.” He decides to say.

“Umm...they suck? I hate them?” Daisuke says. Ken gets the impression that maybe he never should’ve brought this up. And now he has nothing to say. This isn’t going well.

“Ok, so if you have nothing else to bug me about, I’d say it’s my turn now.” Daisuke demands.

“Wait-no, I haven’t gotten my money’s worth at all here! I’m not done with you!” Ken exclaims. Daisuke rolls his eyes.

“Well if you can’t think something up, then I don’t see why we can’t just move on.” Daisuke argues. Ken’s skin warms with rage, but he doesn’t know what to say or do. Exhausted and frustrated beyond belief, he spurts out the exact thing on his mind.

“Why can’t you just tell me how you feel instead of forcing me to pry for every little thing!? Can’t you just stop being difficult for once!?” He yells. Daisuke has the nerve to look surprised and scared for a second before that expression morphs into something more akin to rage.

“You wanna know how I feel!? I feel like you’re a gigantic pain in the neck and I wish you’d just shut up and leave me alone!” Daisuke screams.

“Well I’m sorry for trying to be a _goddamn friend_.” Ken growls, beyond the point of thinking through his actions. Unconsciously, he throws himself back up onto his feet. Daisuke follows him up.

“A friend!? A friend, Ken!? Oh sure, having my brain picked apart makes me feel really fucking loved!” Daisuke shouts, and at that moment Ken regrets not staying on the ground. He’d forgotten what a wildy animated speaker Daisuke can be.

“Well maybe if you weren’t so stupid and impossible to deal with-” Ken doesn’t finish his insult, cut off by an elbow coming down on his head. 

Oh, that is _it._

Ken looks up to see a punch flying for his head again. He dives past it and buries his knee in Daisuke’s gut. Daisuke cries out from the pain, but doesn’t waste any time shifting his still-recovering body towards Ken. In a flash, Ken shoves him back. Daisuke almost topples over, but manages to stay up somehow. He barely takes a second to catch his breath before lunging at Ken again.

Part of Ken wonders why he’s beating up his only friend. The large majority of him doesn’t really give a damn anymore. He slams his foot into the incoming boy’s shin. Daisuke starts to fall and, knowing this, swings his arm up and around Ken’s neck to bring his opponent down with him. 

Ken screams as his back is rammed into the ground. Beside him, Daisuke inhales sharply. But apparently unfazed by pain, he lifts himself up and pins Ken’s arms to the ground. In his first moment of clarity through this haze of violence, Ken sees tears pricking at the edge of Daisuke’s eyes, threatening to spill out with the tiniest blink. He gets to think about this for all of three seconds before Daisuke slams his forehead down onto Ken’s. The world starts ringing. A fist slams into his nose. Without his conscious input, he grabs onto the offending limb and pulls it down so he can bite into it. He hears his friend scream in pain.

Letting go of the arm, he moves his free hand up to try and wipe the disgusting taste of sweat and skin out of his mouth. Something about the awful taste of it brings him back down into his body, a little bit. His face feels wet for some reason.

A weight is suddenly pressing down on him. It doesn’t come down hard enough to make him try and shove it off, though. The extra weight is somehow sort of calming, actually. What a strange effect. Ken thinks about this, rather than how much everything hurts. Though the latter becomes more prominent with time, as he cools down and settles back into his own head.

“I’m a terrible friend.” Daisuke whispers. They’re both gasping for oxygen, though Ken is forced to make an extra effort with Daisuke’s weight on his chest.

“...It’s not like I’m any better. I wouldn’t worry about it.” Ken sighs.

“I’m so scared of my own friggin’ feelings that I picked a fight with the only friend that I’ve managed to keep alive. I’m the worst.” Daisuke whines, suddenly rolling to flop onto his back. Ken is happy for the regained breathing room.

“I’d argue that that’s actually me, but to each their own.” He says quietly. He somehow doesn’t need to look to know that Daisuke is staring at him.

“I’m sorry.” Daisuke murmurs.

“Well, if you wanted to make it up to me, you could always _talk_ to me now.” Ken tries. He can practically feel Daisuke rolling his eyes.

“...I take it back. You’re an insufferable douchebag and I hate you.” Daisuke says with a small laughter in his voice.

“That’s what friends are for.” Ken says, turning his head to flash Daisuke an annoying grin.

“You know what? You’re totally right.” Daisuke mumbles, amused and almost sounding impressed somehow.

“Of course I am, I’m always right.” Ken states with a joking haughtiness.

“Oh yeah, sure, Chimairamon was a one hundred percent right decision.” Daisuke jabs. Ken is so taken off guard that he bursts out laughing.

“ _Ouch,_ man. Too soon.” He says, not entirely unserious.

“You wanted me to get emotional, you asked for this.” Daisuke mocks. “Everything sucks and we’re going to die, woe is me.”

“We aren’t going to die, Daisuke.” Ken reasons, rolling his eyes.

“We are absolutely going to die and you know it.” Daisuke says, laughing weakly as he slowly squanders out any sort of happy-ish mood. Ken wonders if he even knows how depressing his so-called jokes are.

“Daisuke, seriously. Stop it. We aren’t going to die.” He snaps. He doesn’t have the presence of mind to be patient. Daisuke just ruined his good mood and he’s going to pay for it.

“You do _not_ know that.” Daisuke laughs, plainly not taking Ken’s words seriously to any degree.

“Daisuke, are you trying to be serious or are you trying to be funny, because if it’s the first then we need to really talk about this, and if it’s the second you need to stop right now because this shit isn’t cute.” Ken says bluntly.

“Oh come on Ken, it’s not like I’m saying we’re doomed to fail or anything. But let’s be real here, our chances of survival aren’t exactly the _highest._ ” Daisuke blurts, quickly trying to cushion the blow of his own mistake and absolutely failing to do so.

“Daisuke, we aren’t going to die.” Ken says firmly.

“Oh yeah, sure. Let’s see you fall off a cliff tomorrow.” Daisuke laughs. _That does it._

Hit by a sudden wave of emotion and impulsiveness, Ken grabs onto Daisuke’s collar and pulls the both of them up into a sitting position, glaring hard into his eyes. “ _Daisuke._ Look at me. I am not going to die.”

“You can’t-”

“No, no shut up. Shut up, give me your pinky.”

“Dude what are you-”

“SHUT.” Ken orders as he forces Daisuke’s pinky to interlock with his own.

“Are you seriously _pinky promising-_ ”

“Daisuke. Listen to me. Listen to my words. I swear on this stupid fucking friendship ritual that I, Ken Ichijouji, am not. Going. To. Die.” Ken says with as much confidence as someone making a pinky promise could possibly have. Daisuke just looks at him as though he’s insane. “Understood?” Ken prompts when Daisuke still doesn’t answer.

Ten seconds of dead silence pass before Daisuke erupts into laughter. Within less than a minute he’s wheezing and needs to start gasping for air. 

“It’s not that funny.” Ken grumbles.

“It really, really is.” Daisuke says breathlessly, tears visibly pricking at the edges of his eyes. Ken just rolls his eyes as he lays down again. For some reason, he doesn’t let go of Daisuke’s hand. 

“I’m serious.” He whines.

“Sure thing, idiot.” Daisuke chuckles.

“Really, Daisuke. I promise.”

“Yeah, right. Cute.” Daisuke says disbelievingly. Ken snaps.

“No, stop that. Forget about all the other crap for a second. I’m making you a promise right now,” He says, with a seriousness enough to make Daisuke stop giggling a bit and look at him. “I vow to whatever deity you want that you don’t have to worry about me from this point forward. I won’t die. I swear.”

“And how exactly are you going to see the future now?” Daisuke says, sounding incredibly amused for reasons that Ken doesn’t want to process.

“I don’t need to. I can take care of myself.” Ken states adamantly.

“Oh can you now?” Daisuke taunts.

“I’ve made it up until now, right?” Ken shoots back. For some reason, Daisuke doesn’t have anything to say to that. Any trace of amusement is suddenly gone from his face. 

He makes no mocking rebuttals. Ken takes this to mean that he’s won. Confident that he doesn’t need to do any more convincing, he pulls Daisuke into a hug.

“It’s going to be ok. We’re going to make it through this.” He says. “Ok?”

“...Yeah. Ok.” Daisuke mutters back. And Ken smiles.

Against all the stupid odds, he finds himself satisfied with the results of this confrontation.


	12. Hit The Nail On The Head

The next day, Ken feels a little less tired than usual, and a lot more sore and bruised. Izumi says that he and Daisuke look as though they’ve both been hit by a train, before swiftly announcing that the two of them have to be split up for the day’s task. Fantastic.

The place that needs all the important work done has people and that means that Ken can’t participate. So, Ken will be going off on his own to go investigate an area that has apparently been having “an abnormal amount of disturbances.” With Nyaromon. Allegedly, they need Wormmon’s help for Daisuke’s assignment, and Nyaromon won’t stand to let Ken go off on his own without supervision. This arrangement makes Wormmon a bit less uncomfortable about the idea of Ken going off by himself, so Ken doesn’t bother arguing. Izumi says it’ll probably be a quick and easy mission, after all.

Within an hour, all of Ken’s extra energy is completely gone, along with any sense of calm or safety he might’ve had before he’d left the base. Chimairamon is rampaging outside of their protective cave, far too close to the entrance for comfort.

He can’t call for help, Daisuke took the d-terminal and he certainly can’t go back to the television. So they’re stuck waiting for forever or until someone realizes that they’re not home yet. With Daisuke and both partner digimon miles away, rescue probably isn’t going to be coming any time soon. 

The roof of the cave above them shakes violently, and Ken decides it would be in their best interest to head a bit deeper into the tunnel to find somewhere less unstable. Nyaromon is crying too much to disagree, as she has been from the second they’d stepped through the gate and found themselves right behind Chimairamon. For once, she hadn’t complained about being picked up.

He’d been forced to run like a madman through a massive expanse of nothing but dark towers, an area he’d used ages ago to keep the base protected when it wasn’t on the move. The cave, full of minecarts and train tracks, had previously been used to ship supplies to and fro. But for the life of him, Ken can’t figure out how Chimairamon ended up _here_ of all places. There’s nobody around, nothing for it to attack. If it’d really been rampaging here for days on end, what on earth was keeping it around?

Every once and a while, it sounds like something other than Chimairamon is screaming outside. Ken dismisses this thought. The area is deserted. They’d already confirmed that, and furthermore Izumi had pointed this out himself that very morning, and how strange it was that a nearly empty area was being disturbed. Ken can’t think of any plausible theories himself.

The ceiling shakes again, and he pulls Nyaromon closer to his chest. This is exactly why he keeps saying that she shouldn’t be brought along. She’s just being put in more danger than she needs to be in.

Maybe, after today, Izumi will stop saying that it’s harmless.

There’s a scream outside, and the whole world seems to shake. One of the wooden supports collapses. And the front of the cave comes down with it. 

Ken starts running and doesn’t let himself stop until he can’t feel even the tiniest bit of shaking anymore. Nyaromon is in hysterics. Unintelligible, outside of the fact that she seems to be begging for her life. Ken softly tries to shush her as he starts walking back towards the cave in.

He walks into the wall once and nearly trips over the first boulder they reach. They’re buried in so deep that the sun can’t reach them at all anymore. Even so, he can still hear the roaring and screeching if he strains his ears.

That solves nothing though, so Ken turns his full attention towards trying to soothe Nyaromon. He makes an attempt to pet her, but she then starts screaming louder and he draws his hand back immediately. So words is his only option.

“It’s going to be okay…” He whispers, not sure what else to tell her. He starts repeating that. He’s not sure if it helps.

With the front caved in, Ken decides the wisest course of action is to start heading towards the other side of the tunnel. So he turns around and starts to do just that, still muttering to the sobbing digimon. He walks into a couple of minecarts, and briefly entertains the idea of trying to use one, but eventually decides that they’re too heavy to be worth a shot. 

Nyaromon is just starting to calm down when he trips over a rail and falls to the ground. Ken is able to roll to the side quick enough not to squish her, but she starts wailing harder again regardless.

“You’re a massive pain in the neck, you know that?” He grumbles under his breath. Surprisingly, he hears her cry something that sounds suspiciously like “Shut up, I hate you!”

So she’s getting better.

He pulls himself up and starts walking again. Or more like stumbling, since it’s still pitch black. 

He bumps into a fork in the road and then realizes that he has no idea which one is supposed to lead outside and which one goes deeper underground. With nothing to go on but his gut, he picks one and hopes for the best.

After a few minutes it seems as though he’s walking on a downwards slope. It’s probably too dangerous to try turning back now, though. He’ll just have to keep walking until he reaches the end of this one, though it’ll probably be significantly farther away. 

It takes him a while to notice that Nyaromon has stopped crying, and another five seconds to realize that he should probably stop mumbling now. He shakes her a bit to confirm that she isn’t dead.

“What!?” She snaps.

“Just making sure you didn’t die on me or something.” Ken explains. He doesn’t need light to know he’s being glared at.

“Shut up! You can’t get rid of me that easily!” She shrills, and Ken doesn’t care enough to bother trying to convince her that that’s not what he meant. After a few seconds, she starts growling quietly and squirming around.

“Got nothing to say for yourself!?” She suddenly blurts.

“You told me to shut up.” Ken points out.

“Screw you! I almost got murdered by your stupid pet _again_ and I don’t even get a sorry!?” Nyaromon whines. She probably also feels him wince.

“...I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it the first time, and I didn’t mean it this time either.” 

“Yeah, _sure_ you didn’t.” She says, letting acid sarcasm drip out.

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you.” Ken sighs.

“How ‘bout you give me a single reason to believe you aren’t lying to me.” Nyaromon demands. Ken runs into a wall. He’s not sure what to say to her. Of course, nothing he says will stop her from hating him, but he does need to make some sort of effort to not seem evil. So he thinks about it for a bit.

“Well, how about this: if I hadn’t picked you up, you would’ve gotten smushed by Chimairamon. I could’ve easily played it off as an unfortunate accident later. And I didn’t.” Ken provides. Nyaromon goes quiet for a moment, clearly not sure how to make a comeback. Success.

“...Ok, fine. That’s one not-evil point. But that’s it, ok? You’re still probably plotting to kill us all and I don’t trust you even a little bit.” She grumbles after a few minutes.

It’s just as Ken is about to respond to this that the ceiling starts to violently shake again. This is confusing, because they should’ve long past the point of having to worry about Chimairamon. And terrifying, because a chunk of the ceiling just hit Ken in the head and he doesn’t trust the rest of it not to do the same thing. He breaks into a run, though he still doesn’t make much progress since he ends up tripping over his own feet every ten seconds anyways.

The world starts to quake again, and Ken has two seconds to see a chunk of ceiling fall before he’s knocked unconscious.

He doesn’t recognize his own awakening later, in too much dark to know his eyes are open.

“Oh hey, you’re not dead. Good on you, I guess.” Nyaromon’s voice sounds vaguely deeper, for some reason, and he can’t place why. He feels incredibly disoriented, and the lack of his eyesight isn’t doing him any favors. His nose is completely blocked out by smells of dust and metal, and so Ken is left with two usable senses and an unbelievable headache.

“...How long was I out?” He asks weakly. Instinctively, he wipes at something on his face. It’s...wet. Sweat?

“As if I know!” Nyaromon snaps, still with that weird deeper voice. “I think something is happening out there though. Weird stuff.”

Ken asks what she means, and is drowned out by the sound of Chimairamon shrieking. He doesn’t repeat the question.

Aside from the constant rumbling, he can hear some scratching and rocks being moved around in the area around Nyaromon.

“How on earth can you see what you’re doing?” He asks her.

“I’m used to seeing in the dark. It’s really not that hard.” She says, before going back to whatever she’s doing. 

“Do you…want any help?” Ken offers, not sure what he should be attempting to do in this situation.

“No. If you seriously can’t see _anything_ , you’d just be getting in my way.” She barks. Ken decides that this is fair enough, and not worth his energy to argue against. With nothing else to do, Ken props himself up against the wall to think and to wait. This is easier said than done, as he’s very dizzy for some unidentifiable reason, but he tries his best.

So he thinks and waits for a while until the thinking and waiting is interrupted by a sudden ray of light coming down from the ceiling. Both he and Nyaromon scramble over to it, and upon reaching the light Ken finally realizes why Nyaromon’s voice was so different. The digimon was not Nyaromon, but in fact, something else. She’d evolved while he was unconscious or something like that. To protect herself, or something?   
Even more light starts to pool in, and Ken looks up to see rocks being pulled away. His brain freezes up at the sight of blue sky. Hand they really gotten out from under the mountain already? It hadn’t felt like that long…

A pair of hands reaches forward to pull more rocks back, and Daisuke’s face comes into view for a split second before disappearing again. He lets out a shriek of surprise at the sound of two people shouting his name. 

Ken tries to stifle his laughter as a very ruffled Daisuke glares down into the hole.

“Oh yeah, real funny. I could just ditch you in there, y’know.” He grumbles. Despite the threat, he doesn’t stop digging them up.

“Jeez, don’t be such a little baby.” Nyaromon gripes. Ken coughs out the rest of his giggles and tries to recompose himself.

“...Did you hit puberty while I was gone?” Daisuke asks, sounding genuinely confused as he squints blindly at the space where her voice came from. Ken suddenly gets an idea and grabs her off of the ground, ignoring her protest, and gets on his toes to lift her up towards Daisuke. “Oh, you did.”

Daisuke hangs himself down into the hole, dangling by the hips, and scoops the flustered, whining digimon into his arms. 

He then realizes that he can’t get himself up. He starts wriggling back and forth, and makes zero progress in lifting himself. Ken honestly could’ve just stood there laughing if it weren’t for the fact that Daisuke falling into the hole would spell major trouble for the both of them. So instead he starts searching around himself for a rock large enough to prop himself up on. Daisuke crashes onto his back and he’s slammed forward into the ground.

Through the ringing in his head he hears Daisuke yell something that distinctly sounds like “What the hell, lady!?” but there’s no up or down and he has no idea who the “lady” is or where he should turn to find her.

“Hey hey hey hey wait, what are you doing? Hey, hey hold on a second! Hey!” A particularly large rock lands directly on top of Ken’s head, and it sounds like others are crashing down around him. 

“Stop trying to bury us!” A squeaky voice blares in his ear. There’s a roar and a sound that Ken can’t place and then Daisuke’s voice shouting “Atta boy, Exveemon!”

He needs to get up, puts his hand down to do so but it lands in a puddle and something about that seems so entirely wrong that he pulls back his hand to look at it, even though he can barely see and everything is fuzzy. His hand appears darker than it should be. He hears Daisuke swear and feels arms pulling him forward and he has no idea what’s happening anymore. His vision is covered in a tv static. He hears a dull thudding sound that might be more rocks falling, and feels something being pressed against his forehead. Wrapped around it? He can’t tell anymore. He can barely feel anything. He can feel his consciousness slipping away from him, and his fight to gather his surroundings quickly turns into a fight to keep his eyes open. Things swirl and melt together and Daisuke’s words come out muffled, like there’s a ball of yarn stuffed down his throat. Everything mixes together into a muddled swamp water and all that makes it through anymore is the overbearing scent of blood.

Then suddenly there’s light, so much light but nothing is any clearer and it’s all _red_ instead of purple and for some reason, of all things, his brain decides that the thing it wants to process first is the absence of his glasses, and he wonders where they are.

His eyes start closing without his permission, only to feel a sudden jostling all around him, causing them to open again. He hears words and they’re clearer this time but he stumbles over himself as he tries and tries to piece them together.

“...ok? You promised, so…” Is the only part that Ken can make out, in a split second of clarity before the world goes black.


	13. Good Guys and Bad Guys

Ken returns to consciousness with the world’s worst headache. He recognizes his location instantly: the base. He’s spent too much of his time staring at this ceiling to not recognize it. He doesn’t remember how he got there. Or really anything outside of Daisuke, some yelling, and a rock hitting him in the head maybe. 

Speaking of Daisuke. “Oh, you’re awake. Good. Now we can all get murdered as a group.”

“Daisuke, for the last time, he’s not going to murder us.” Ken rolls his head to the side, and he sees the second speaker is...whatever Nyaromon turned into. He thinks that thing is called...Plotmon? He can also now tell that someone bandaged his head up. Probably Daisuke, by process of elimination.

“Nope, we’re dead. Any second now our lives are going to flash before our eyes.” And with this declaration, Daisuke throws his hands in the air, walks over to Ken, and flops onto the floor.

“Why are we dying exactly?” Ken asks, trying to shake off the urge to close his eyes again and sleep forever. If the situation actually _is_ dire, he needs to be awake for it.

“Oh, right. So we...may or may not have accidentally murdered a digimon who Koushiro is...fond of?” Daisuke explains. Ken thinks this over for a few seconds. A digimon Izumi likes. After he’s already been up their asses about killing too many digimon. “Yeah ok, we’re definitely dead.”

“Don’t say that Ken...we’ll work this out somehow.” Wormmon tries to assure him. Ken just sighs.

“Welp! It was nice knowing you guys!” Daisuke says. Wormmon starts to say something about this, but his weak voice is completely cut off by the door slamming open. Damn, right on cue.

But what Ken sees when he finally pulls himself up off the floor is not Izumi, but rather Ishida and Izumi together. Oh. Even worse.

Ishida certainly looks like he’s about to disembowel them, and Ken feels what he assumes to be Wormmon curl up against him, trembling horribly. Daisuke stands up and steps forward bravely. Ken, however, doesn’t move, and with his headache he’s not sure he could even if he wanted to.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Ishida asks, feigning calm as he stalks towards them, Izumi trailing behind.

Ken doesn’t know what possesses him to say “No, I was asleep.”

“It was a rhetorical question, Kaiser.” Ishida hisses, and the look he gives Ken makes him draw back involuntarily. Not because he’s scared, but because of the...family resemblance. He’s not sure if it’s his headache that’s making him nauseous anymore.

“Ok listen, Ken is actually telling the truth, so leave him out of-”

“Oh you want me to listen!? You want me to listen to what you have to say!? News flash, every decision you’ve made since you got that digivice has been a terrible one! Maybe _you_ should fucking listen to what _you’re_ told for once!” Ishida is right up against Daisuke now, and to Daisuke’s credit he doesn’t back down.

“Excuse me!? Your _friend_ rushed us with a giant fucking club! I didn’t want to kill him, I didn’t say to kill him, it just kind of happened! Maybe if Koushiro had given us some sort of warning about him, we wouldn’t be in this mess!” Daisuke argues. Oh, so it was just another episode of ‘some digimon with a thing for vengeance decides to try and off them’. Well yeah, there’s not really anything they can do about that...

Izumi looks like he’s about to say something, but Ishida beats him to the punch. “It just kind of- it just kind of happened!? Yeah, like all those other times you murdered a digimon who was in your way! How long until one of _our_ digimon is collateral damage!?”

“What do you expect me to do, just sit there and let my head get bashed in!?” Daisuke’s voice cracks, and Ken can’t help but wonder what kind of expression is on his face right now. But now it’s Izumi’s turn to step in, and his emotions are much less obscured than Daisuke’s currently are. Huh, maybe it’s Izumi who’s going to murder them after all.

“Maybe it wouldn’t have been a situation you found yourself in if you didn’t insist on keeping the enemy around!”

“The- Ken’s not the enemy, Koushiro! You know that!” Daisuke sounds genuinely startled. Honestly, Ken can’t blame him. Izumi was probably the last person he’d suspect of secretly resenting him.

“I _don’t_ know that! All I know is that, since he showed up, things have been getting progressively worse. And now Ogremon is dead, and what do you two have to show for it!? You don’t even feel bad!” 

“Did you miss the part where _he tried to murder us!?_ ”

“You know what, Daisuke!?” Ishida is practically breathing on Daisuke’s face now. “I wish he had!”

This statement causes several gasps to sound from around the room, and even Ken feels a bit taken aback. He knew that logically, Ishida probably wanted them dead, but that and hearing it directly are very different things. 

Izumi, however, only looks a little surprised at the outburst.

“Yamato, you don’t really-” Izumi puts a hand on Ishida’s shoulder, only for it to be slapped away.

“You think I don’t really mean that!? I might still have a little brother if it weren’t for these two!” Yamato snaps. Daisuke very visibly trembles, which is a perfectly reasonable reaction, given that Ishida looks like a feral animal right now, and that tower of terror is now focusing all its fury directly at him. And grabbing him by the collar.

“Oh, let me guess, that’s not your fault either, right!? You didn’t _mean_ to get them all killed, but there’s just nothing you could do, right!? Boy, that sure makes a huge difference, huh! Tell that to our parents, I’m sure they’ll appreciate it!” Daisuke doesn’t respond to this. He doesn’t appear to be moving.

Ishida lets go of Daisuke’s shirt and the smaller boy nearly falls right over. He grabs onto Daisuke’s hair...no, his goggles, and rips them off his head. “You don’t deserve these.”

Daisuke doesn’t respond. Ken, however, does.

He’s on his feet the second the idea comes to him. He’s seeing red and he’s not sure if it’s the pain in his head or the anger. But his head isn’t fuzzy for once, no, if anything, it’s never been clearer. 

He walks right up to Ishida. The older boy is obviously a lot bigger than him, but with his level of proficiency in Judo, this is a non-issue.

So Ken grabs Ishida and flips him over his shoulder.

The scream of pain that comes out when the stupid older boy hits the floor gives him immense satisfaction. Serves him right.

But he’s not done yet. 

Ken crouches down to grab onto Ishida’s hair, and he pulls hard, causing another scream of pain.

“Stay the fuck away from him.” 

And with that, he drops Ishida’s head, shaking off the bits of hair he’d ripped out. Then he moves his grip down to Ishida’s jacket, as his hair is far too greased to be effectively used as a handle, and he drags Ishida back over to the stairs, throwing him down hard enough to guarantee some deep bruising.

“Out. Now.” He hisses. Ishida doesn’t give him the satisfaction of fear, though, glaring at him with pure hate as he shakily pushes himself off the stairs. Ken hears a clattering sound behind him, and he turns to see Izumi hurrying to get his laptop off the floor. Once it’s in his arms, he runs right past Ken and up the stairs. Ken can’t tell if he’s scared or not, but he supposes it doesn’t matter either way. Izumi isn’t important. He’s not the one who needed to be taught a lesson.

Assuming that Ishida isn’t going to try to pull anything anymore, Ken lets his attention move back to Daisuke.

“Are you ok?” The question comes out kinda sharply, and he isn’t sure why.

“Dude, that was…” Daisuke is quite apparently having a hard time figuring out what he wants to say. “The scariest way someone has ever stood up for me.”

“You’re welcome?” Ken doesn’t know how else to answer that.

“I mean, yeah, thank you, but also holy shit dude.” Daisuke seems more playful than actually scared, so Ken isn’t really sure whether he’s supposed to apologize or not. “Are you like, ok? That was...kind of...concerning? Behavior wise, I mean. Kinda...evil dictatorish.”

“Was it?” Ken mutters. “I mean, I think I’m fine? I don’t _feel_ like I want to enslave anyone.”

“Well that’s good.” Daisuke laughs.

The door slams behind them, and it’s only then that Ken realizes. “Wait, fuck. I didn’t get your goggles back.”

Daisuke stares up at the door for a few seconds and sighs. “...It’s fine.”

“Wh- are you sure?” Ken can’t really hide his surprise. Those things are like...Daisuke’s most valued possession. 

“...Yeah. Yeah.” Daisuke says in an almost wistful sort of way. Ken stares at him for a few seconds.

“Are you sure _you_ didn’t get hit in the head?”

Daisuke laughs at that. “Yeah. I just…I think I just need to think for a bit. Speaking of that, though. How are you feeling? You did just flip a middle schooler, how’s that genius brain of yours doing?”

“Uhh...it hurts a lot, actually, now that I’m thinking about it.” Ken sits down now, feeling lightheaded again now that his anger-fueled adrenaline has faded away. “What even _happened_ …?”

Daisuke gets down next to him, putting a hand on his back to hold him up. “Well, a lady in a red dress showed up and started trying to bury us? And some rocks disagreed with the shape of your skull.”

“Lady in a red- what, the one that kidnapped porcupine hair?” Ken asks in bewilderment. If Daisuke has anything to say about that insult, he keeps it to himself.

“I mean, I would assume so, but she’d already disappeared by the time we got out of the hole so I didn’t exactly get to ask her.” He laughs.

“...Weird. And how’d we get from that to pissing off possibly all of the other chosen?”

“Ahaha, well...I tried to take you back through the portal I’d used this morning, since I figured it’d be safer than, y’know, the place where the enemy jumped you, but the digimon there weren’t too happy to see you? And things just kind of...escalated from there.”

“I...see.” Ken pauses for a few moments, contemplating. “Hey, Daisuke? Sorry for basically getting you kicked off the good guys team.”

“What? No, dude, you saved me from the ass kicking of a lifetime. If anything, I owe you one.” Daisuke moves his hand up to Ken’s shoulder, which is probably supposed to be some sort of reassuring gesture or something.

“Yeah, I guess, but...Izumi is right, at least a little bit. You probably wouldn’t have ever had any trouble with them in the first place if it wasn’t for me.” Ken elaborates. Daisuke closes his eyes and mulls this over.

“Don’t worry about it. If those are the good guys, I think I’m glad I’m not one of them anymore.” Daisuke laughs again, and Ken can’t discern whether or not it’s genuine.

“Ok, yeah, agreed...What does that make us then? The bad guys?”

Daisuke lies back and stares at the ceiling. “Mmm, well...I guess we _do_ have a lot of people on the good guys’ side that hate us. Even if we aren’t, y’know, _trying_ to be evil.”

“Yeah…” Ken mutters.

“I mean, I don’t think Yamato counts as a good guy either, but he’s on the good guys’ side. So...what does that mean then?”

“That maybe the qualifications for being a good guy aren’t that well thought out?” Ken asks jokingly.

Daisuke thinks about this for a moment. “...Maybe. Hell if I know. I’ve never been good at thinking about complicated things.” He remarks.

“Great, so my role model for how to be a good guy doesn’t get it either.”

Daisuke laughs quietly. “Yeah, sorry dude. I got nothing.” 

Ken chuckles a bit himself, before flopping down next to Daisuke to join him in ceiling-watching. It’s quiet for about a minute, before Daisuke breaks the silence again. “...Maybe that’s all just a bunch of nonsense anyways.”

“What is?”

“I don’t know, all of it. Good guys and bad guys and guys guys.” Daisuke explains.

“...Yeah, maybe.” Ken agrees. 

After a moment, they both start to laugh.

Ken’s whole head feels muddled up and messy, and everything hurts, but he keeps laughing anyways. Thinking about feelings is confusing, and he doesn’t want to, so he just won’t. 

Eventually, they both run out of steam and stop. Then they just lie there quietly. Ken doesn’t really have anything to say, and apparently neither does Daisuke. So they don’t say anything.

“H-hey-” Ken nearly jumps out of his skin at the sudden noise behind him, and he whips around to see a rather frightened looking Wormmon.

“Hey...” Ken responds, uneasy for reasons he can’t put his finger on.

“...Are y-you ok? Y-you’re not mad a-anymore…?” Wormmon asks, shaking to a ridiculous degree and keeping his eyes trained on the ground.

Ken feels a lot of things, but mostly confused. “Mad?...At Ishida, you mean?” Wormmon meakly nods. Ken doesn’t think about his answer. “Of course I’m still mad at him, why wouldn’t I be? I hope he falls off a cliff, he’s an asshole.”

“O-oh.” is Wormmon’s trembling response. Ken fidgets, not knowing how to respond to Wormmon’s distress in the slightest. He...he really doesn’t know how to deal with this. He looks over at Daisuke, trying to plead for help with his eyes. He gets a shrug and a smile in response. Oh screw him.

Ken fumbles as he tries to think of something to say, but Wormmon ends up doing the job anyways. “...S-so, um...uh...how are w-we going to get b-back to the digital world…? That...Izumi, he took the computer…” 

Ken just stares blankly for a second, processing this information. “...Fuck.”

Daisuke bursts out laughing. 

“This is a problem for you too, quit laughing!” Ken snaps.

“Sorry, sorry- Oh my god, I can’t believe it took us this long to realize that.” Daisuke is still laughing, even as he says this.

“Oh shut up, you aren’t sorry at all.” Ken rolls his eyes.

Surprisingly, Wormmon makes a suggestion. “Um...w-well, K-Ken has a...laptop right?” Not a good one, but still.

“That’s in my old apartment, Wormmon. I’m not exactly going to be able to get in there.” Ken says. Wormmon looks disheartened at that, and he almost feels kind of bad for having shot him down so quickly. But fortunately, or maybe _unfortunately_ , really, Daisuke then makes a proposition to save Wormmon’s idea.

He says “Well, I can pick locks, y’know.”

And it all goes downhill from there.


	14. You're Safe Now

“I believe I’ve said this already but I think it bears repeating; the ski masks make us look a million times more suspicious.”

Daisuke looks up from his lock picking and raises an eyebrow. “Well yeah, but it’ll make you harder to recognize if we get spotted. And besides, you don’t rob a house and _not_ wear a ski mask, right?”

“I don’t know whether to I should question that apparent rule or question your alleged knowledge of robbery etiquette.” Ken says, deadpan and weary.

A few months ago, Daisuke would’ve likely not understood any of the words used in Ken’s remark. If Ken were more of a romantic, he might’ve found that interesting to dwell on. 

“Oh come on, you know what I mean!” Daisuke insists.

“No, I don’t.”

“Whenever you see movies about robbers or see a robber on the news or something, they’re always wearing a ski mask, right? So obviously if you’re going to rob a house, you gotta wear one!” Daisuke explains, with all the unearned confidence in the world, as always.

Ken puts a hand to his temples. “I’m just going to try and not think about how stupid that is so I don’t get a headache.”

“Come on, Ken! Don’t be such a grump! It’s more fun like this, right? We look like criminals!”

Almost as though in spite of his previous statement, Ken’s head starts to throb painfully. “We are criminals. Daisuke, we are literally in the process of committing a crime at this very moment.”

“Well *I* think it’s fun.”

Ken stares at him for a second. “You are quite possibly the worst person I’ve ever known in my whole life, you know that?”

Daisuke’s only response is some laughter, and at that same moment, the lock clicks fully open. He opens up the door. “Well, scaredy-cats first.”

“I’m not scared.” Ken grumbles, but he heads inside first anyways. Daisuke shuts the door behind them as they walk into the all too familiar household.

“Sure you aren’t.” Daisuke’s snicker turns into a noise of pain as Ken elbows him in the side.

“Let’s just get the laptop and be in and out-”

“Hey look, a wallet!”

Daisuke runs over to the counter and snatches the wallet up, immediately opening it and taking out a wad of money.

“Daisuke _no_.”

“Why not? You hate them, right?” Daisuke reasons. Ken opens his mouth to say something to that, but can’t seem to come up with any sort of argument. Daisuke is right. He has no reason to care about this, and in point of fact, he doesn’t. He’d just disagreed out of principle, since, well, they’re supposed to be good people or whatever, but now that he remembers who it is they’re robbing, he fails to give a damn.

Daisuke continues to empty the wallet. “We might as well, right? We’ve already broken in, after all!”

“...A noble statement there.” Ken remarks and starts walking towards his former bedroom. “But you’re right, I don’t actually care, and the thought of them losing a shit ton of money is honestly kind of appealing, so knock yourself out.” 

“Alright! Finally, I can spend my allowance on something other than food for you!”

Ken at first smirks, listening to his friend’s childish glee, but then he opens the door to his bedroom, and his mood is suffocated. Upon passing through the doorframe, Ken feels...rather hot. Yeah, that’s why he’s sweating. That’s the only reason why people sweat. Because it’s hot.

So he rips off the ski mask and quickly hurries to grab his laptop. It remains where he left it; on his bed. Like he never even left. 

He scoops the laptop up hastily, rushing out of the bedroom as fast as he can. Immediately he finds himself relieved to be back in the presence of his friend and his friend’s stupid questions.

“Hey, why don’t we just take the whole wallet, and then we can dump the not-money part in a dumpster somewhere?”

“ _Why?_ ”

“Well, you look really stressed out all of a sudden, and I wanted to cheer you up, so I thought it’d make you happy to torment your folks?” Daisuke smiles at him, nervous and unsure.

Ken is quiet for a good ten seconds or so, processing this. Then he hugs Daisuke as close as he physically can. “That’s the stupidest thing ever, and I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that this is your idea of comfort or the fact that it’s actually working on me.”

“It is?” His face can’t be seen, but Daisuke sounds surprised.

“...Yeah. It is.” 

Daisuke’s grin can practically be felt. “Alright, I’m rocking this friendship thing! What else do you wanna do to ruin your parent’s day?”

Ken thinks about it. “...Let’s take the family album with us and set it on fire when we get home.”

And that’s exactly what they do. Daisuke goes out to get a lighter, and when he comes back, he has both that and a box of felt markers. “So we can mess up their faces!”

Oh that’s...dumb. Ken feels a giant, stupid smile form on his face, and he does nothing to fight it. He snatches up the first picture in the album and sets it ablaze, watching with joy as the smiling faces of his parents burn up and disappear. Daisuke lifts up the second picture to reveal two crudely drawn doodles overlapping his parent’s bodies. Honestly, they’ve never looked better.

They continue ruining all of the brand new anniversary photos together, and soon enough, Plotmon and Chibimon both have markers in their mouths, excitedly joining in on the fun. Ken finds that he likes to draw all over one picture and then set an untouched one on fire. It’s more satisfying to watch the faces he hates burn up than the ones that he enjoys.

While the digimon produce little more than squiggly messes, Daisuke comes up with masterpieces, making such intricate scenes full of troll faces and impalement wounds that it almost seems like a waste to get rid of them. So they start a pile of pictures to keep.

Daisuke seems almost concerned once they reach a page that includes pictures of Ken, but then Ken takes the first photo and burns it with no hesitation. Daisuke doesn’t worry a second longer and gets to work.

Watching the fake, forced strain on the smiling boy in the photo, watching as it disappears forever, Ken feels something well up inside him. Daisuke says he’s never seen Ken so happy.

Ken takes another one, one of him holding some trophy for a competition or whatever, and he’s about to burn it when Wormmon finally decides he has something to say about all this. “Why do you have to burn these?”

“We don’t have to, we’re doing this for fun.” Ken explains this simply as the edge of the photo starts going black.

Daisuke holds a pen out for Wormmon. “Come on, try it!”

Wormmon hesitates for a minute, eyes drifting between the pen, the now-ablaze photo in Ken’s hands, and Ken himself.

He takes the pen. 

Wormmon’s first art piece is a drawing of Mr. and Mrs.Ichijouji with devil horns on their head. Or at least, that’s what Ken assumes the formless squiggles to be. Additionally, their hands, placed on either of Ken’s shoulders, are blacked out.

Wormmon looks up, his eyes filled with something Ken can’t quite recognize. And he asks “Do you like it...?” Ken can’t recall having ever heard his partner sound so hopeful.

“It’s great, I love it.” Ken gives his partner a smile, and receives one in return. He takes the picture and puts it in the keeper pile.

This event continues for hours. At some point, Chibimon shoved a marker up Plotmon’s nose and she got delirious, but she ran out of energy after chasing her own tail for a while. 

So now she’s just sprawled out on the floor with her pen still sitting in her mouth, wearily tapping on her paper. Chibimon is hoarding all his pictures under his body for safekeeping after Daisuke made the mistake of offering to burn them. 

At this point, Wormmon no longer asks for Ken’s opinion, just shows Ken his picture and smiles at the words of approval that follow.

Daisuke seems to have outworn burning singular photos, now stacking them up and burning them in a pile. The fire glimmers and flickers in his eyes, and it looks oddly enchanting. It suits him, sorta. 

The pyromania party continues for ages and Ken doesn’t even notice how old the pictures are getting until he flips the page and is suddenly face to face with Osamu.

His parents are in the photo too, but he barely notices them as his brother’s static face stares up at him. There’s something, at the corner of his brother’s smile, something familiar. Tension?

A hand touches his shoulder and Ken flinches so hard that something cramps. 

He’s not sure how long he’d been staring at the photograph, but it was apparently long enough to cause Daisuke concern. He doesn’t know what to say, and apparently neither does Daisuke, because instead of talking, his friend presses an object into his hand.

Ken looks down at the object. It’s a black sharpie.

He isn’t sure what to do with it. About half of Ken’s mind considers doodling some demon horns whilst the other half balks at the idea. So he just sits there for a while, looking between the picture and picture-ruiner.

Eventually, though, he decides. He uncaps the sharpie. Slowly, carefully, he takes the photo in his hands and begins to diligently work on it.

The finished product is an untouched Osamu and two blacked out parents.

He puts the photo in the keepers pile.

Turning his attention back to the people present in the room, Ken finds that he’s being stared at by pretty much everyone. Wormmon is plainly worried, asks if Ken is ok, if he needs to stop now or if he wants a glass of water or something. Chibimon just looks confused as to why playtime is suddenly over. Even Plotmon is looking at him, not even angry for once. He’s not sure what to make of her expression, but it’s decidedly sympathetic. Weird.

Daisuke’s hand never left his shoulder, and when Ken finally turns to look at him again, he puts on a smile. It’s so blatantly fake, but that in itself is just so very Daisuke that it manages to have the intended effect anyways. 

Because despite being unable to pull off a convincing portrayal of happiness, Daisuke is trying his best to be comforting. And so the effort makes Ken feel comforted all the same.

So in response, Ken gives his own cheesy smile.

After a few seconds, this infection spreads and the digimon all mimic the human’s smiling, though none of them seem to know what it is they’re smiling about.

Sitting in this weird little circle of people that just keep smiling for no reason, Ken feels something he can’t recall having felt before. He wonders, if perhaps he stopped smiling and opened his mouth to ask about it, if Daisuke would have a word for this feeling, or if he’d be just as lost too.

Instead of saying anything, though, Ken picks out the next picture of Osamu. He’s holding an academic award. That same strain is there on his smile. 

He torches it.

The next is of him standing with his manager. He’s smiling. He looks like he really wants that woman’s hand to stop touching him. So his was like that too, huh? 

Again, he burns the picture.

Daisuke and Wormmon seem to have gotten the idea, and both hand him pictures with large black spaces where his parents originally were.

They make a seperate pile for the pictures of Osamu.

Some more time passes, and eventually, upon realizing that they’re not going to be able to get rid of all the smoke due to the nature of their underground bunker home, they decide they’ve set themselves up with enough breathing issues for the time being and put the lighter away. The family album is placed inside the coffin and sealed up.

Daisuke declares that they all need a good night’s sleep and ushers the group over to bed. Everyone complains but no one lifts a finger or paw to stop him. Though he’s somewhat restrained once Ken’s got his arm wrapped around him and two digimon are passed out on his chest.

Ken doesn’t immediately fall asleep. He’s staring off into space, or into Daisuke’s shirt really, when he realizes the other boy is still awake too.

“Hey…” he mutters. 

Daisuke looks at him. Then Ken hears some paper fluttering. “Hey, you ok? Having trouble sleeping?”

“I think I’m good, it’s just taking a while…” It might take hours, to be honest, but Ken would rather not say anything that would cause Daisuke to fuss over him. “...Hey, Daisuke?”

“Yeah...?”

“Thanks for...all that.”

Ken feels Daisuke wrap an arm under him, and he thinks about how that’s totally going to cut off all the circulation, but he doesn’t point this out to Daisuke, because despite the whining it’s going to cause in the morning, being held feels nice. When it’s Daisuke, at least.

And that’s how Ken passes out; cuddled up against Daisuke like a koala bear, with Chibimon in close enough proximity that the action of rolling over might cause the digimon to smother Ken in his sleep. He sleeps, his head spinning with thoughts of parents and Osamu and a million other things coming out of hiding after having been ignored for a while.

But with an already numb arm wrapped around him, and a feeling in his chest that he doesn’t know the origin of, Ken has no nightmares. He just sleeps. And that’s that.


	15. Three More Words That Mean Things

They’re gonna die. That’s not what he expected to happen today, really, despite knowing they were going back to the area they’d last seen Chimairamon. Maybe he believed in his own promises too hard. That everything would work out because he’d been determined that it would, that nobody’s stupid bullshit pessimism would be proven right. But it has been. God damn it.

Ironically, it wasn’t even Chimairamon that lead to this situation, but rather its apparent killer. He can still smell the blood from here. Or is that his own? They barely even got a chance to observe the offending digimon, but even more infuriatingly, they’re not even going to die being attacked, no, rather they’re stuck under debris caused by the rampaging digimon that never actually noticed them. From what little he saw before they got caught under all this shit, it was chasing around that lady in red, who he’s also fairly certain he saw hauling around an unconscious Yagami. 

They were close to success. How unbearably insulting. 

Now, though, he has a few other concerns, like the fact that his leg has been completely crushed under a rock and that attempting to help himself by moving it would most certainly cause the ceiling above himself and Daisuke to collapse, though it’ll probably do that any minute now regardless. 

He’s been crying from the pain, but oddly enough, he doesn’t really feel...fear. Daisuke’s freaky, unwavering calm might be contagious. Because here he is, lying on the ground dying, with his best and only friend about to die with him at any moment, and he doesn’t feel scared.

Daisuke doesn’t feel scared either, of course, he’s got that insufferably calm look on his face as usual, pushing Ken’s tears off his face with the minimal light he has to even see them.

“...Look on the bright side, our digimon might live!”

“Please don’t do the fake ass happiness thing right now.”

For a long, quiet moment, Daisuke is silent. Then his face...relaxes. He’s still calm. But there’s no smile, no light in his eyes. If he wasn’t about to die, Ken might’ve wanted to say hello, meeting his best friend face to face for the first time.

Daisuke takes his hand. “...Hey...let’s hold all our regrets really close to us and be ghosts, and then let’s haunt that stupid lady and torment her for all this dumb shit.”

“...Yeah. Ok. Sounds like a plan.” Ken squeezes the hand in return. There’s more explosions outside. If he really, really strains himself, he thinks he can still hear their digimon calling for them.

...He’s gonna miss Wormmon once he’s a ghost.

Besides all the explosions, it’s quiet for a while. Just this once, Daisuke has nothing to chatter about to keep him distracted from what’s in front of him.

...Let’s hold all our regrets close, huh? When phrased like that, it doesn’t even sound really negative. Maybe it isn’t. 

His regrets aren’t ones he should be letting go of any time soon, anyways.

What does a person like Daisuke regret, he wonders...?

...Probably just a lot of bad calls. And possibly something deep and tragic and angsty.

“Ken? I know I said we ought to hold on to all our regrets, but I have something I want to say right now. Don’t worry, I have plenty of other things to weigh down my soul.” There’s still no smile or ingenuity on Daisuke’s face, no mask, and it looks wholly unfamiliar.

“...Alright, hit me.”

“So uh...I figured I might as well try saying this, since y’know, we’re gonna die in a few seconds anyways, but uh…” Daisuke trails off, and if Ken didn’t know any better he might’ve thought his friend sounded nervous.

He raises an eyebrow. “Since when do you beat around the bush? Tell me.” Daisuke snickers a bit at that, then nods.

“I love you.”

Oh. What? Uh, what? “...Ok, uh...What’s that mean in this context?”

“...Not sure yet. Just makes sense in my brain, y’know? So how about you?” Daisuke asks casually, as though this question is nothing. Of course, there is nothing in this world Ken Ichijouji will back down from, so he decides to act much the same way.

“Well I don’t know, I never thought about it.”

“Try saying it then.”

“Uhm. I love you.” Ken lets that sit in the air for a moment. Daisuke says nothing in response. “...yeah, that feels about right.”

“Funny last words, those would be.” Daisuke says with a laugh.

“Oh shut up.” Ken pretends to be mad to hide the fact that he’s smiling too.

Huh. Weird. He’s gonna die, but for some reason, everything feels like it’s going to be ok.

He hears a heartbeat. Not the one that’s been throbbing from the blood loss in his leg, but one matching it. He can feel them both, beating in tandem. How weird. How weirdly nice.

It’s not dark all of a sudden, so abruptly that Ken is blinded by the light. The pressure on his leg disappears. Slowly, he blinks away the blurriness and looks down to investigate. 

What he sees is a large digimon throwing aside the surrounding rubble.

If Exveemon and Stingmon were figurines, this digimon is as if you’d disassembled those figurines and mixed all the parts together. ‘Mixed’ being a very kind way to describe it. A more accurate one would be to say that the parts were shoved into holes they didn’t belong in and held there with a large helping of super glue. Stingmon’s arms don’t even look like they can do anything from their position.

The amalgamate creature turns to look at them with concern. “Are you guys al- Ken…! You’re hurt…”

From the word ‘guys’ Ken had initially thought the speaker was Exveemon, but then the second half of the sentence sounded more Stingmon-ish. The voice sounded like neither of them, more akin to some kind of demon from a cheesy horror movie.

A...fusion…?

“Oh my god, that’s _awesome_! You two fused together!?” Daisuke has started fanboying over their new digimon. “You look soooo badass, what do we call you!? Ex-sting-vee-mon...mon…?”

 

“God, I hope that’s not the name.”

“...No. You can call me Dinobeemon.”

Daisuke squeals. Fucking _squeals._

“Hey that’s really nice guys but my leg is, uh, fractured I think, so can we not right now?”

“Oh, right, um.” Daisuke looks between Ken’s mangled leg and their partner’s new form. “...Could you like, handle yourself for a minute while I take Ken home?”

“...I believe that might break us apart.”

“Oh that’s probably also not a good thing. Uh...fuck…”

Ken thinks for a quiet moment. “This could be our only chance to save Yagami. Ditch us here for a minute and go get him.”

His partner- their partner…? - nods, and takes off towards the action. He hopes it’s durable enough for those giant flaming balls of doom. Or good at dodging.

Daisuke sits down next to him. “So we’re not dead. Sweet. And now I guess we’re a...something?”

...A something, huh? “...Would a ‘something’ be akin to a couple?”

“Do you want it to be?”

“...I’m not sure.”

“Well then it doesn’t have to be unless you decide you want it to be.” Daisuke replies easily.

“...Do _you_ want it to be like that?”

Daisuke is quiet for a moment. “...I think I’d like that, yeah. But I also like this too. So it’s fine.”

“Alright then…” Ken leans on his shoulder. “...A ‘something’ sounds funny though.”

Daisuke laughs a bit. “...A pair?” he suggests.

“...Sure. Ok. We’re a pair then.” Yeah. That’s kinda nice.

The screaming woman in the distance is less nice. Dinobeemon comes flying back towards them as fast as it possibly can. “Get the gate ready! Guys!!”

Daisuke scrambles up and hauls Ken up into his arms with difficulty. Ken’s leg screams loudly at the jostling, and he bites down on his lip to keep himself from crying out. Daisuke takes off running for the tv, and Ken bites down hard enough to taste blood in his mouth. Ick.

There’s the feeling of Daisuke coming to a stop, then Dinobeemon descending on top of them seconds after. A big, terrifying hand lands on Daisuke’s shoulder and the last thing Ken sees before being flung through the portal is a giant psychedelically coloured spider reaching for him from meters away.

Yeah, he’s definitely gonna have a lot of nightmares about this trip.

The unceremonious heap they fall into ends with Yagami collapsing directly on his leg and he’s too busy screaming about that to even acknowledge or recognize that Yagami’s here and that they’ve actually succeeded in something.

Something is placed in between his teeth and he bites down hard on it. “Vee, please get Taichi offa Ken’s leg.”

It occurs to him to consider why Daisuke doesn’t do this himself, and he then realizes the thing he’s biting down on is Daisuke’s hand, provided to him by the gag himself. He feels rather guilty seeing this, but also can’t do much about the fact that he definitely needs the gag. “Plotmon, grab the medicine kit, we need it at exactly now. Wormmon, grab a water bottle from the stash.”

He hears the sound of Daisuke digging around in the kit, then pulling something out. “Let go for a sec now, I’ve got pain killers.”

With what seems to require way too much willpower, Ken takes his teeth out of Daisuke’s hand, and Daisuke quickly uses his other hand to shove the pills into Ken’s mouth. Ken swallows, and is then handed the water. Veemon finally gets Taichi all the way off of him, and the sound that comes out of his mouth is two parts relieved and ten parts still in unbearable pain. God, his leg isn’t even that fucked up. This is how much it hurts just having a teenager on your leg? It’s even more terrifying in retrospect how little screaming was involved with Daisuke _falling from the sky and snapping his arm backwards._

“Ok, I’m at the end of the part where I understand what I’m supposed to do. Ken? I know it’s rough buddy but I really need your help here.”

“Do...pretty much the same as I did for your arm...make sure the leg isn’t crooked, then...put a stick against it and wrap it….”

Daisuke starts doing this to the best of his ability. The painkillers aren’t doing shit, and Ken starts throwing up from the pain.

“Ok that’s...this is…” Daisuke moves away from him for a moment, and Ken hears fabric shifting. “... _fuck_.”

“...what’s wrong…?” Wormmon’s concern voice interrupts Daisuke from his string of swear words.

“I uh. Dropped something important back on the other side of the gate.”

“Oh...oh no…”

“No, no it’s fine. It’s fine, this is fine, this is all perfectly fine.” Daisuke sounds shaken and stressed out. Great. It’s officially the apocalypse.

“...I take it I’m not allowed to carry you to the hospital?”

“I...can’t stress enough...how much I’d rather strangle myself with my own entrails.”

“Alright then…” Daisuke gets back to work on his leg, meticulous despite the fact that he’s beyond stressed and audibly hyperventilating. Ken would honestly rather he have a permanently fucked up leg than have Daisuke continue to keep moving it into place with painstaking attention to precision, because god it hurts so much.

After what feels like forever, his leg is delicately placed on the ground, and he heaves out a sigh of relief. He looks down. Huh. That looks literally perfect. So much for not knowing what to do.

Daisuke walks over to their still unconscious princess and kicks him a little. “Taichi. Wake up.”

Yagami does no such thing.

“...Fuck. Ok so he might actually need a hospital or something, I don’t know. I think I’m going to carry him back to his apartment, yeah? I’ll pick up our lunch on the way home.”

“...sure thing…good luck...” Ken mutters, exhausted and feeling as if his body is going to fall apart at the seams.

“Thanks. I’ll be back soon…” After a moment of thought, Daisuke leans over and kisses his forehead. Ken has _no_ idea in the slightest how he feels about this. Daisuke gives no indication of how he feels about it either as he lifts Yagami up onto his back, having forcibly ripped all the sincerity off his face in order to deal with Ken’s leg. 

Ken wonders if he did it on purpose or not.

Daisuke turns to him and their digimon with his trademark grin. “Take good care of Ken, ok everybody?”

Veemon and Wormmon happily agree, affirming that Daisuke can count on them. Plotmon just grumbles.

So Daisuke leaves. Wormmon spends the first little while fussing over him, but eventually gives up after Ken says there’s nothing he needs him to do for about the millionth time. And then it gets quiet. Not silent, he can hear Vee and Wormmon talking, and if he strains he think they’re talking about their fusion, and Plotmon is snoring off in another corner somewhere, but it’s still...quite quiet.

How silent would this place become, he wonders, if Daisuke went out one day and never came back? If there was something, something that stopped him from coming back, something that he’d never be able to confirm because he can’t buy a newspaper and can’t contact him and wouldn’t know where to find anyone and ask, how quiet would it be? Knowing the little nightlight isn’t going to come brighten up this dark space anymore?

Ken feels a pressure on his chest, and at first he thinks it’s because he’s about to cry or something. But he doesn’t, because it’s not his own body causing that pressure, but rather Plotmon’s, as she’s decided to come over and curl up on his chest rather than the floor.

“Wh-”

“Shut up, mopey loser.”

“...Ok.”

Ken shuts up, and they wait for Daisuke to come home.


	16. No Place Like Home

Ken hates the ceiling. And with no proper cast or means of acquiring crutches for himself, he is forced to stare at it all day, every day, while they wait for his leg to heal. He stared at it a lot before, of course, but at least then he had the option of not looking at it, even if he never chose that option.

He tries to comfort himself at least somewhat with the reasoning that Daisuke and their digimon are all much safer and less stressed while they’re staying home to wait for him, but this is a hard idea to grasp onto when Daisuke looks more tired every time he comes home, whether it be accidentally running into an older chosen at the hospital or just from the worry caused by Yagami’s continuous state of comatose. According to the doctors, he should’ve woken up weeks ago. He hadn’t even known Yagami was that important to Daisuke before he saw how much it ate up his soul to discover his ex-leader might never wake.

He’s sorta forgotten that Daisuke’s universe was once bigger than the two of them. 

He’d never let the crushing guilt of the other kid’s untimely demise slip from his mind, but...he stopped thinking of them as Daisuke’s friends, at some point. Which really wasn’t his fault. Daisuke rarely spoke about them, and had always had an air of detachment about him when he did. But...no. That wasn’t Daisuke’s usual lack of empathy. It was _hiding_ , most likely. Whether to hide his pain from Ken or from himself. He ought to have noticed…

But then again, can anyone blame him for failing to grasp the emotions of someone as confusing as Daisuke?

...As it turns, yes, yes he can, and so that’s what he spends most of his day doing. Contemplating. Worrying. As Daisuke’s sort of friend, sort of something-unclear-but-more, it’s his responsibility to do something about it, is it not? 

Part of his brain says it’s not. Another part believes that it is. Confusing. Annoying.

Ugh.

But even more confusing and annoying than all that, is when, one day, the computer lights up, and a woman pops through. A woman in a red dress.

Ok. What the fuck?

Immediately, the digimon scramble to their feet and glare at her. She scoofs. “Don’t bother, none of you are strong enough to stand up to me.”

Surprisingly, Wormmon is the first one to take up this challenger. “I’m pretty sure I could...”

“Not without that pest here to fuse you and the stupid dragon together, you can’t. Let me put this simply, I’m taking back my pawn here, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“The hell are you going on about?” Ken hisses.

“Oh, you didn’t know? Well, no point in telling you really, but the long story short is that I need you to go back to your evil self for me.” The woman says, getting far too close for his liking. “I would’ve come to help get your spore back in working order sooner if not for that brat. Though his presence did benefit me in some ways, I suppose. After all, that Gennai intended to shut it down completely by removing your memories in your sleep, had your _friend’s_ careful watch not prevented it. What a hero, right?”

“Stop blathering nonsense.” He says, and Wormmon shoots a sticky net at her. The woman morphs into a familiar spider to easily rip the net off. Oh. That’s gross.

“Let me rephrase myself, insect. I have infinitely more power over you while you’re currently unable to fuse into an Perfect. Stand down or you will be killed.”

It is at this moment that a knife flies past her face. Seconds later, he sees Daisuke, somehow here and not at school, run down the stairs and past Ken to fling himself at the Perfect level digimon.

What the fuck?

“You insolent little brat!” As was bound to be the second this unfathomably stupid plan was put into motion, Daisuke is flung off and slides across the floor ragdoll-style. The gross spider woman then starts reaching for Ken. Fuck.

He scrunches his eyes shut as a giant hand grabs onto him, as if that’ll somehow make it better, only to open them in shock a moment later when he feels the hand be knocked away.

Oh. Tailmon is back. Huh. Neat.

He figures he’ll be surprised about it later when there’s less pressing matters at hand. Like the fact that Exveemon, too, is also here, and is definitely too big for here, and is destroying a lot of stuff integral to the structure of the base.

Ken stares pensively at the shaking walls and ceiling as if hoping to hold it up through strength of will. “Please don’t bring the base down on top of us, I’m getting really tired of cave ins.”

Arms are touching him, and Ken freaks out for a moment before realizing it’s just Daisuke, having come back over to him already with his herculean pain tolerance, though still wheezing in pain from the previous attack. Through sheer force, he hoists Ken up bridal style. It looks excruciating. “Everybody, we’re running!” 

He scrambles over to the laptop and opens up the gate. Wormmon jumps in immediately, and the two of them follow. The force of being pushed through the gate causes Daisuke to fall to his knees, and the struggle to keep from dropping Ken is plainly visible on his face. So, Ken gets Stingmon out to take the burden instead. Not a second later, Exveemon and Tailmon coming barreling out of the portal, and rather than stopping, the former plucks Daisuke off the ground and keeps flying, with his partner under one arm and Tailmon on his back. Stingmon gets the picture and takes off after him. Ken hears yelling behind him, but he can’t look back.

“Fly up so she can’t reach us?” Tailmon suggests loudly.

Exveemon nods, “Alright, hold on!”

They’re soon flying high in the clouds, and Ken feels many things, none of which are the wonder he might’ve expected to feel. Firstly, he can’t actually see anything through the damp, unpleasant clouds, so there’s nothing much to marvel at. Second, having Stingmon holding him this high up in the air again raises the concern that he might find himself plummeting towards the ground at any moment.

“We...don’t need to be quite this high up, do we?” He asks, though not loud enough to be heard by those other than Stingmon.

“...Just bear with it for a few more minutes so she can’t find us, ok…?”

“Ok…” Not like he has much of a choice.

After seemingly forever, they dip beneath the clouds again to begin landing. They’re right near that black lake. 

Great. Because the day wasn’t already shitty enough.

Upon their return to solid ground, Ken is not flooded with the relief he would’ve hoped to feel but rather a vague sense of nausea and dread seemingly caused by proximity to the lake. Daisuke looks similarly disconcerted as he’s placed on the ground. He puts his head in his hands and sighs miserably. “...guess home’s exactly 0% safe for us now.”

“Yeah...Wait, right, uh...question, why did you even come home in the middle of the day?” Ken asks, and the sudden tension that rises in Daisuke’s shoulders clearly indicates that he was hoping Ken wouldn’t notice the unbelievable convenience of his heroic arrival.

“...Just...had a bad feeling…?”

“...what?”

“Nevermind, we need to find a place to stay tonight.” Daisuke successfully dodges the topic by pointing out something too important to ignore. 

“Right...let’s try and get as much distance between us and this lake before nightfall…” Nausea aside, he doesn’t even want to think about the potential consequences of one of those...things...coming out for a midnight stroll and stumbling across their camp.

Daisuke nods in full agreement. And so, they start walking. 

It’s been a while since he last had nowhere to call home, huh? A few months, at the least. There’s a deep ache in his chest, thinking this. Sure, the last base wasn’t nice or anything, but it came with a sense of familiarity and structure, and a stockpile of thingamajigs that he’s going to miss.

Another thing comes to mind, though. He turns to Daisuke. “...You can’t live with us anymore. We can’t camp out near a tv now due to that lady, and you need to go to school.”

 

“...Nah, I don’t. You can tutor me, right?”

“Missing children don’t have credentials, no I can’t.”

Daisuke sighs. “What’s it matter if it doesn’t count for real life points?”

Ken is about to argue the very obvious reason why it would matter, then realizes exactly why this information wouldn’t have reached Daisuke’s brain. “...Does the concept that we may survive childhood not occur to you at all?”

Daisuke pauses for a long moment. “...Not really, no.”

“...How are you simultaneously the most upbeat and most depressing person I’ve ever met in my life?”

“I have a talent.”

“No, you have a serious problem. You need a therapist.”

“Says the ex-evil dictator.”

Ken rolls his eyes, “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do-”

“Hello, renegade chosen.”

A Ladydevimon stands before them.

“...fuck.” Daisuke whispers.

“I don’t intend to harm you.” She prefaces, and is about to begin talking again when Tailmon interrupts her. “Like hell we’d believe that! What kind of idiots do you take us for!?”

The Ladydevimon sighs deeply. “I don’t believe your companions to be stupid. In fact, I think them rather smart, being the only chosen children with enough awareness to rid themselves of connection to the Holy Beasts. You, however, seem to be very idiotic and rude.”

Tailmon is about to answer that, only for Daisuke to put a hand over her mouth. “...Uh...uhm...What _do_ you want?”

“Help, of course, as anyone would come to a chosen to get. But of course, having the appearance that I do, I naturally thought it best to ask you two in particular. You were statistically less likely to immediately try to kill me. I’m glad to see that luck was in my favour.”

Ken raises an eyebrow. “Define _help_.”

“Nothing a hero wouldn’t approve of, rest assured.”

After a few beats of silence, the Ladydevimon opens her mouth again. “I also offer housing in exchange for your services. You’re in need of that, yes?”

Tailmon bats Daisuke’s hand away from her mouth. “You were watching us! You knew we were in danger! If you’re so good, why didn’t you help us!?”

“I never claimed anything positive of my morals. If you died so easily, you wouldn’t be any help to me. And besides, I’m not optimistic enough to think you’d help my kind free of charge. A lady needs a good bargaining chip.”

A few moments of silence pass.

Ken eventually sorts all this out enough to lay down an observation. “So either this is an obvious trap and you’re going to kill us in our sleep at this housing you speak of, or you genuinely need us to an extent that you’d provide us with a home for that cause.”

The Ladydevimon nods. 

“...Well at least she’s fairly honest.”

Exveemon just stares at the woman with a stern look. “I’m not going anywhere until I hear what kind of help she’s asking for.”

He receives a nod in response. “Alright, fair. I need you to stop the other chosen from sealing up the Dark Ocean again.”

Well it’s certainly a straightforward request. “...Dark Ocean? As in the lake back there?”

“Yes, that.”

Exveemon is still suspicious. “...why?”

“It’s a long story, but a lot of digimon will suffer if that happens, and none of those digimon are ones the Holy Beasts care about.”

“Why, ‘cause they’re evil!?” Tailmon really isn’t a good negotiator.

“No. I do work for a digimon which you’d likely classify as evil, if that interests you, but this request has nothing to do with my line of business. I am building a village, much like the ones that existed before the Dark Ocean’s initial sealing. I have every intention of it being peaceful.”

Huh. Ok. “...I take it this village is where you plan on having us live?”

“Yes. There are quite a few digimon who’ve gotten excited at the prospect of having you two on our side, you know. It’s definitely a fantasy a lot of virus types have thought extensively about.” Ladydevimon then looks directly at Tailmon with something not unlike vicious jealousy. “After all, it’s not fun to find out the fairytales were always intended for other digimon. It’d be nice if the children we’ve gathered never had to learn such a cruel lesson.”

“Gathered or kidnapped?” Tailmon snaps.

 

“What does it matter to you? They’re ‘evil’ digimon, right?” The Ladydevimon sneers, with a judging, scathing look that’s almost reminiscent of something Tailmon herself would express.

After an extended awkward silence, Ken coughs and poses a question of an entirely different sort. “...How close is the nearest tv to your village?”

“A fifteen minute walk.” she answers easily.

“...Would you lift a finger to help us if we were attacked again?”

“If she came for you in your sleep, the border patrol’s horns would have you wide awake long before she could reach you.”

Ah. Convenient.

Before Ken can turn to Daisuke to ask him for his thoughts on the matter, a loud “Alright, sure! We’ll try it!” has already left his friend’s mouth. 

...Sure, ok. Just go ahead and decide for everyone, why don’t you? Asshole.

Tailmon starts to raise her own complaints about this, but Daisuke covers her mouth again. The Ladydevimon claps her hands together and smiles. “Alright then, I’ll lead the way.”

The group pensively follows her for a surprisingly short distance, and though Ken loathes just how close it is to the lake, it’s certainly not a surprise with the little information they’ve been given so far. 

What is a surprise, is just how _populated_ this supposedly under construction town really is. From his recollection, virus types, specifically of the Nightmare Soldier variety, are solitary, and avoid communities. But here’s a large one, that must’ve only just come into being if the lake’s existence is what kickstarted all this.

“Stingmon, your mind seems very occupied by something.” Ladydevimon remarks casually.

“...How did you get all of these digimon in one place…? I’ve never seen anything like this.” His partner was on the same wavelength as him, apparently.

Their bizzare escort gives him an almost pitying smile. “Of course you haven’t. Any civilization we attempt to recreate is burned down by the Holy, so we stopped trying, probably before you first hatched, even.”

“So what changed?” Daisuke asks, simply and full of an odd abundance of curiosity. Odd because Daisuke had never seemed all that concerned with talking to digimon before. Perhaps due to the fact that they all hated Ken. Scratch that, it was definitely because of they hated Ken.

“Well, for starters, the lack of a threat to stand in opposition to us. The other chosen can no longer reach Perfect level, and you are now on our side.”

“That stands to be seen.” Tailmon warns.

“...Anyways, there’s also the return of our power source. The young ones can grow up fast and strong, here. Stingmon, you’ll also find yourself quite rejuvenated in the Ocean’s presence, I believe.” Oh, so that’s why she’s singling him out. She sees Stingmon as one of them. Hmm. He’s not sure what he thinks of that, really. He supposes it doesn’t matter. Stingmon doesn’t respond to her anyways. 

Daisuke, however, is still apparently in the mood for asking questions. “Hey, hey, Lady! You keep using words like ‘again’, so like, what happened?” It comes out sounding too casual, in a way that makes it completely obvious why Daisuke is being so interested all of a sudden. He’s trying to be disarming. He never once thought this digimon was trustworthy, but he wants to make it seem like he does. If Ladydevimon recognizes this, she doesn’t openly acknowledge it.

“Well, we all used to live right next to the ocean, in villages like this one here. But the Holy Beasts didn’t like that, so they sealed off the Dark Ocean on another plane where no one could reach it, and all our homes got sucked in with it, alongside all the oceanic digimon who’d lived in the waters. I’ve gone to see if the digimon lost back then were still around, but it would seem the warp away from the digital world...distorted them, somehow. None of them seemed to recognize me, either.”

“Oh. That sucks.”

Ladydevimon smirks a little bit. “Yeah, it does suck.”

Tailmon pipes up angrily again. “I don’t see why I should be expected to believe in the goodness of your intentions when you literally admitted to working for a villain!”

“Oh, don’t worry, I expected nothing of the sort from _you._ ”

“So what’s your reasoning, huh!? Why are you out terrorizing people if all you really want is to play house or whatever!?”

“No, no, I definitely feel fully devoted to my goal of ripping your kind to shreds, but a woman’s got to have side hobbies.”

Tailmon is boiling over with fury, only restrained from a murder attempt by Exveemon’s arm.

Ladydevimon seems delighted. Then she claps her hands again and then gestures at the house next to them. “Alright, here we are! I’ll give you the rest of the day to settle, and we’ll start talking strategy tomorrow, sound good?”

Daisuke nods and gives her a thumbs up. Tailmon screeches obscenities. Hm. They swear in front of her too much, perhaps.

At any rate, though, he’s transferred over into Daisuke’s arms, and once everyone is at a reasonable size, they head into their new home. 

If there’s one thing he can say for it, it certainly doesn’t require an extreme adjustment to darkness to see anything. It’s not half as spacious, though, feeling rather cramped, with a ceiling almost touching Daisuke’s head rather than extending far, far above it like their old one did. Daisuke seems to enjoy the furniture, though, and upon setting Ken down on the bed, he quickly begins inspecting it. He opens the bedside table’s drawer a couple dozen times before pulling a ton of knives out of his pocket and dropping them in.

“When the fuck did you feel the need to stock up on those?”

“I lost mine back when we rescued Taichi, so I figured it’d be best if I had extras!”

“Why do you find these to be such a necessity?” He knows he’s going to hate the answer, but he has to ask anyways.

“Uh...It’s a secret!” 

Yeah, he was right, he absolutely hates that answer. Damn serial killer best friend. “There is something deeply wrong with you.”

“Don’t be so grumpy, it was your dad’s money!”

“...That is in no way more morally upstanding, but it does make me feel better.”

A deafening siren blares outside. Daisuke is already hurrying to the door to investigate, only for it to open on its own accord, or rather Ladydevimon’s

“There’s been a change of plan. The chosen are here _now_.”


	17. Like You've Done For Me

Tailmon doesn’t like this plan.

Even less does she like being made the centerpiece of this plan. 

But. 

It will save Daisuke and Veemon from the grief of having to face the older chosen and get screamed at. For that reason alone, she’ll do it. Not because she thinks it’s what’s right.

Honestly, she doesn’t know what’s right at this point. She’s not sure if she ever did. She followed Hikari’s lead. Hikari always knew what was right, because she was a wonderful person like that. So she picked her first actions upon being reborn based on what Hikari would’ve wanted her to do. Protect the other’s eggs. Protect Daisuke.

But now she’s not sure what Hikari would want her to do anymore.

If she asked her former teammates, she’s sure they’d say what’s best is to fight evil digimon, as they were made to.

People often call Stingmons evil digimon.

So even if that was the correct course of action, she’s quite sure she’d rather die.

“Tailmon!” Sora is the first to see her. 

She runs over to the group of older kids, and they’re all cheering. There’s a part of her, a hardwired part of her that was made in a lab to be a chosen digimon, that wants to give up on doing what she was originally doing. To turn her back on the plan and pick up whatever her team is up to.

“...Hey guys. So, what’s the plan?”

Gennai steps forward. He’s happy to see her, too. But not because she’s herself. It’s because she’s a chosen digimon. A holy digimon. She supposes that’s a fine enough reason to be happy to see someone, if the person doing it weren’t...Gennai. “Well, our original plan was to pool energy from all of the chosen, but...Now that you’re here, Tailmon, I believe a few charged up holy arrows should solve all of this.” Hmm.

Pool energy, he says. He’s already pooled energy from all of them to the extent of making them incapable of reaching Ultimate. They’re down three people. How much energy can he take before they have nothing left to give?

She’s not sure what stirs these thoughts. She’s never felt suspicious of Gennai before. But maybe it was that comment, the one the spider made yesterday, about him wanting to steal the Kaiser’s memories in his sleep, that’s making her more suspicious.

She’s also not sure why the thought of him doing that makes her so angry, really, she doesn’t even like the Kaiser, but she’s a bit glad if it makes her more privy to this...scheming.

“Now then, Koushiro, please give me that orb I gave you to hold onto earlier.” A glowing ball is handed to Gennai, and then extended out to her. It radiates warmth and power, enough that she hardly needs to hear the explanation to understand what’s expected of her. “Qinglongmon gave this to me so we could deal with the situation at hand. It’ll turn you into Angewomon again. So, how does getting a chance to stretch your wings sound?”

She doesn’t respond to this, and she touches it.

Feeling herself change into Angewomon without the presence of Hikari’s light is a painful experience, one she hopes she never has again.

Tall, and floating in the air, she notices something that she hadn’t before. Taichi is here. 

He must’ve just woken up this morning if Daisuke didn’t find out about it yet. 

And Gennai planned to absorb energy from him.

For what? To destroy a village made of mostly babies and children?

...She still doesn’t approve of LadyDevimon’s plan, or any collaboration with Nightmare Soldiers whatsoever, but this makes her want to stomp Gennai’s shit in right now. In fact, she just might.

That bitch’s voice echoes in her brain. “Calm yourself, blondie, you can strangle him in a minute.”

She hates how she can’t just shove that voice out.

Gennai claps his hands together. “Alright everyone, let’s get some firepower into these arrows!”

Soon enough, the team is giving their all to power up a holy arrow. Just like the good old days.

But she doesn’t remember Greymon’s attack power being this fragile and inconsistent back then.

Not actually absorbing any of the energy being lended to her, she draws her bow, arrow at base power, and points it at the lake. “Holy Arrow!”

Then shifts her aim upwards and shoots Birdramon out of the sky.

There’s screaming, from Sora, then from Birdramon herself as she hits the water. Giant clouds of smoke billow out of her to the point that Angewomon can’t even tell whether or not she turned into Biyomon. She flies down into the cloud, and yes, the bird is little and pink.

Scooping her former teammate up into her arms, she turns to address the manipulator in the room. “I don’t approve of this plan, Gennai. Moreover, I’d like to know why you think you think it’s ok to take the energy of someone who just woke up from a coma.”

“...Angewomon, calm down. This is vital to the fate of the digital world-”

“No it’s not. There’s what, a couple dozen child level digimon that are feeding off this lake? And the only other permanent resident is Digitamamon. A cook. What a threat to peace.”

“They’ll grow up to be evil.”

She repeats lines LadyDevimon as feeds them to her. “They’ll grow up to be angry. You’re just ensuring they’ll be angry at the forces of good by doing this.”

“I know this is painful, but we can’t just leave them alone and hope that they’ll be good, Angewomon.”

“Did you tell the kids the threat they’re killing is a village of children?” Some of the chosen are staring at her in horror. Others are staring at Gennai with much the same expression.

Mimi is already crying. “What!? Gennai wouldn’t do that…! Right, Gennai!?”

“Of course not. She’s been manipulated by the darkness, Mimi. Everyone! Change of plan, attack Angewomon!” Oh _fuck him_.

It’s not like she can defend herself with a digimon in her arms, so her first order of business is to swoop down and drop Biyomon off.

Order of operations continues as follows: Dodge, attack, dodge, dodge, dodge, try to reason, dodge, dodge, attack, repeat.

She eventually notices that Greymon isn’t attacking her. So she starts looping behind him as she flies, stopping everyone’s attacks for a brief enough moment for her to charge up her bow an extra time. Sweet.

Yamato, as with everything, isn’t happy about this development. “Greymon! Move already! Stop letting her use you as a shield!”

“She can use me as a shield as much as she wants, I’m not going to set her on fire just because she said what she thinks!”

“It’s not what she thinks, she’s being controlled!”

“Well I agree with her anyways! Taichi should be at home resting! He’s half passed-out as is!”

Yamato continues to scream about this, but whatever he’s saying is drowned out by what sorta sounds like an earthquake. And what turns out to be a giant something rising out of the lake. It rises and rises, and she’s pretty sure it’s taller than what the lake would allow for.

Her first instinct is to shoot it immediately. She draws an arrow to do just that, but that stupid Ladydevimon’s voice echoes in her head. “Easy, girly. Dagomon should be able to tell you’re playing for the home team. If you care about any of those chosen kids, though, you ought to move them asap.”

Care about any of them? She cares about all of them.

...But she grabs Taichi and flies away.

Not because that’s what Hikari would’ve wanted her to do, Hikari wouldn’t have had a preference, she would want everyone safe. But Angewomon...is not unbiased. Taichi will always be family. No matter if her family no longer includes Hikari, no matter if her family is all strange and includes members she doesn’t even like, Taichi is family.

She’s not sure why the idea of family resonates with her. She never had one for the longest time. But then Hikari taught her that family was people you laughed and ate with and understood in a way you’d never be able to say out loud. It’d been a short lived experience. She’d only just been reunited with her partner and shown all these nice calming things before Hikari suddenly wasn’t there anymore.

She really, really wanted to hate the Kaiser for that.

She doesn’t like the Kaiser. Not at all. He’s the worst. Sure, he hadn’t directly intended for it to happen, but he still built the thing that eventually stomped the life out of her partner.

Infuriatingly, though, she isn’t allowed to hate the Kaiser. Because the Kaiser is family. Because despite how little she wanted him to be a part of her family, he is family. 

Because for reasons she does not understand and does not want to understand, Daisuke wanted the Kaiser to be with them. And grew to adore him. As did Veemon. And of course, Wormmon loves the Kaiser more than anything else in the universe, as he was made to.

So the Kaiser is family whether she likes it or not. And she _certainly does not like it_. But that doesn't make her petty. She’ll protect the Kaiser if he needs protection, will even evolve to do so should the need arise. It would make everyone sad if he was hurt. And if he died? She’s not sure Daisuke’s sanity would survive. The Kaiser will receive her protection. For their sake, not his own.

Taichi groans with exhaustion as she arrives back in the village, barely seeming aware of his surroundings as she knocks on the hidden door the children have stored themselves in.

The Kaiser opens it and peers up at her, Pagumon pooling around his feet and looking at the angel with curiosity.

She hands over Taichi and gives the Kaiser a look to indicate that a failure to protect him would mean pain beyond his wildest imagination, and she hates that they know each other well enough that he seems to get the message perfectly.

She flies at top speed back to the lake and...would like to know what the fuck is going on.

What seems to be happening is...everything? All at once. She has no idea what she’s looking at. The lake now seems to be a thick whirlwind, for one thing. She can’t even see where the tentacled creature is, though she assumes it’s inside the eye of the storm. The only visible digimon is one in the sky, one that wasn’t there before, robed in red and flinging fire at the whirlwind, though the only effect of this seems to be causing water and steam to fly out everywhere.

She’d like someone to explain what the hell is happening now please.

“Relax, blondie, this is all according to plan.” Says a voice right next to her ear. She yelps and jumps away, then glares.

“ _This_ is according to plan!? You didn’t mention this in the plan at all! What are you plotting!? Tell me! Now!” she draws her arrow and points it between the liar’s eyes.

“Save that. My boss up there is gonna notice the light if you shoot.” Ladydevimon plays with her hair, unphased by the death threat.

“Your boss. So you _were_ planning on-”

“Nope. What I’m planning hasn’t a thing to do with his nefarious intentions. Quite the opposite, in fact. That’s why I had the little emperor stay behind. If the big man up there took one look at him, he’d be whisked away before you could say ‘holy arrow’.”

“...Oh. So you’re blackmailing me with him.” Has she ever been more insulted in her life than by having the Kaiser’s safety held against her? She doesn’t think so.

“You don’t have to look at it that way. Just think of this as a mutually beneficial opportunity. I scratch your back by providing you this opportunity to destroy a threat to his wellbeing, you scratch mine by letting me reap the benefits of this destruction.”

God, she hates Ladydevimons.

“...What would you have me do?” She grates the words out, they feel like sandpaper on her tongue. Trees are starting to fall down around them from the force of the whirlwind.

“Just wait for a bit. Those two will wear themselves out eventually, and you can pick off whichever one survives with an arrow.” 

Sounds easy enough.

“What are you getting out of this?” She’s probably not going to get an honest answer, but she needs to try, at least.

“Control over a nice castle and an army. Which isn’t going to impact the digital world all that much, really. Territorial expansion will be put on the backburner for my army immediately, there’s a lot of things more important to be working on at the moment and Daemon is quite the fool for chasing after conquest so hastily.”

God, she hates this so much.

“...Where are the children?”

Ladydevimon grins. “I hypnotized the little devils and lead them to a safe cave, just for you. Aren’t I sweet?”

She wishes so much that she could wipe that smug look off her face. She settles for a well directed sneer. “That stands to be seen. Show me.”

“Of course, of course.”

Angewomon is lead to a small cave. She notices the protective bubble of darkness surrounding it, and then pretends she didn’t.

She doesn’t recall having ever seen so many children crying. Maybe back in her days of ravaging villages for Vamdemon, she might’ve, but if she did, she doesn’t remember it.

Sora runs up to her and hugs her leg. “I-Is Taichi safe…?”

She reaches down and runs a gloved hand through the soaked red hair. “Yes, he’s in a storm shelter now.”

Koushiro speaks next, quietly, from his curled up position next to the wall. “Can you transport us there? I’m not sure how structurally sound this cave is, or if it could flood…”

“...No, I couldn’t.” Her holy power would protect her from the damage of the rain, but...Just because Yamato is crying now certainly doesn’t mean he’s harmless. She must keep him separated from Daisuke.

Koushiro doesn’t ask if it’s because of her wings or not. He just stares at the rocks beneath him silently.

Not knowing what else to do, she sits down herself, wrapping one of her wings around Sora in the process.

“You were right.” It’s Yamato who addresses her, this time. “About Gennai. He tried to get us to sacrifice ourselves to seal away...whatever it is out there.”

Mimi starts wailing uncontrollably, flailing about and causing Jyou to have to chase after her injured arm and grab it. “Why!? Why would he do that!? I don’t understand…!”

Angewomon finds herself sighing wearily, answering the rhetorical question even though she knows it’s only going to cause more pain. “Because he only cares about preserving the digital world, not so much about making sure its protectors come out in one piece.”

“That’s stupid!” Yamato barks through his tears. “Who’s gonna protect the digital world if he lets us die!?”

 

“Daisuke and the Kaiser, I suppose.”

“They’re murderers!”

“Gennai wouldn’t care as long as they kept only murdering virus types.”

There’s a long, suffocating silence following this statement. And so Angewomon is forced to think about things. About how she would really, really have liked to have argued on Daisuke’s behalf, to have said that everything was the Kaiser’s fault and that Daisuke was dragged to the dark side. 

She has to think about the fact that she didn’t, because she herself doubts the truth of that defense.

Because even if he was pulled over to the side of evil…

He made it so _easy._

He wasn’t bothered the first time they had to kill an attacker. He never seemed ashamed of his actions when he was told to stop doing it, only annoyed at being nagged.

So it begs the question of whether the Kaiser made him a murderer or if he’d only ever been good for the other chosen’s sake.

She doesn’t like that question.

She hates it. She hates it so much.

She doesn’t want to think of Daisuke as a bad person, or a murderer. She knows it’s not his fault. That he’s just a little kid that can’t and shouldn’t be held accountable for not knowing what to do in his situation. That it would be cruel not to extend the same benefit of doubt that she was given by her partner years ago.

And so she hates that question. 

Because if Daisuke is only a child, who deserves mercy, despite being a murderer, then it would be unfair, incredibly unfair if she didn’t extend that same mercy to the Kaiser.

She hates that more than she knows how to express.

Ladydevimon’s voice enters into her mind, bouncing around with everything else that’s annoying. At least, thank god, the words that come to her are a distraction from the other ones.

“Get off your ass, it’s time.”

**Author's Note:**

> Is it super weird to make a random plot thread, never address it, and then pick it up in another fic altogether? Probably definitely yes. Do I care? No.


End file.
